Build a Fence, Call It Home
by okaynextcrisis
Summary: Caprica AU. Mystery writer Laura Roslin moved to the quiet town of Qualai to escape her demons and work on her new book in peace. But her plans go awry when architect Bill Adama builds a house next door...
1. The Book

_This started out as a prompt from the lovely heretherebeangst (who should know better than to encourage me) for "Bill/Laura + a flower, a dog, and a book." I wrote a three-part minific, and that was supposed to be the end of it, but, well..._

_Title taken from the song "Wildflowers" by Fierce Bad Rabbit._

* * *

**Chapter 1: The Book**

* * *

"No, Richard, I _don't_ know when I'll have the manuscript ready," Laura said for the third time, trying to make herself heard over the pounding of the drills and the screeching whine of the saw outside her window. "I'm having trouble with the ending, and—"

"Laura, I can't hear a word you're saying," Richard said patiently. "Did you say you have the ending?"

"No, I'm saying I need an _extension_—"

Richard's voice on the other end was growing irritated. "You what?"

Laura tried again: screaming at her editor over the phone was not how she liked to go about asking for favors. And with only fifty pages written, and a plot that got worse the longer she wrote it, a favor was definitely what she needed.

She took a deep breath. "What I'm saying—"

And then the lights went out.

"Richard, I'm going to have to call you back," she said calmly. "I have a murder to commit."


	2. The Dog

**Chapter 2: The Dog**

* * *

Laura didn't bother to get dressed or fix her hair; she just tied the belt of her robe, stalked across the damp grass separating her property from her neighbor's, and demanded to speak to whomever was in charge of construction.

"That would be me," a muscular, rough-faced man said, stepping free from the crowd of crew in hard hats. "Bill Adama. Is there a problem, ma'am?"

Laura crossed her arms. So _this_ was the insensitive oaf who'd ruined the past two weeks of her life. "As a matter of fact, there is," she informed him. "I live next door. And since you've started work here, I have not had one minute's peace. I get woken up before six, and if it's not drilling it's sawing, if it's not sawing it's pounding, and when you finally quit for the night you're blasting music until two in the morning."

A thought occurred to her. "Is that even legal? Loitering on a property after hours like that?"

Adama's face darkened. "It's my property, and I'm legally entitled to do whatever I want on it."

"Your property? But I thought…"

"I'm the architect, yes," Adama informed her. "And I'm building this house for myself."

"Big house for one person," Laura said, squinting up at the beams arching high above her head.

Adama's glare deepened the creases in his craggy face. "I have two sons."

Visions of screaming small children and noisy barbecues and endlessly loud birthday parties swam in front of Laura's eyes.

"And a dog?" she said faintly.

Something of her thoughts must have shown in her face. Adama flashed a grin, his teeth very white against his sun-darkened skin. "A big dog," he said cheerfully. "Shaggy, loud, sheds everywhere…"

Laura cleared her throat. "I work at home," she informed him. "I'm a mystery novelist. I have a manuscript due in three days. And thanks to your constant distractions and interruptions, I still don't know how the damn thing's going to end."

Adama tilted his head. "The dog."

"The dog?" Laura repeated wearily, one hand on her hip.

Adama's smile widened. "Have the dog be the killer," he suggested. "No one will ever see it coming."

Laura was not willing to dignify that with a response. She turned on her heel, wishing the squishy wet grass wasn't mucking up her exit. "Get my power back on within the hour, or I'm calling my lawyer," she called over her shoulder.

So the noise wasn't going to stop, and the pain in the ass she'd been cursing for two weeks was even more of a pain in the ass than she'd thought.

On the bright side…Laura might have finally figured out what to do with her book.


	3. The Flower

**Chapter 3: The Flower**

* * *

_Nine months later…_

"Daddy, look, somebody left something on the porch!"

Bill smiled indulgently at his younger son. "Let's go check it out, buddy," he said, lifting Zak up onto his hip and cracking open the front door.

A book had been left by the door, a single long-stemmed rose stuck between the pages.

"What's that, Dad?" Lee asked from over Bill's shoulder.

Bill picked up the book: _Murder at Daybreak, by Laura Roslin._

"I don't know, son."

He flipped to the back cover…and saw the smiling image of that pain-in-the-ass writer from last summer. And under her face, a synopsis of the book:

_All Maura wants is to finish her new book. But when the architect of the house next door turns up brutally murdered…_

"Why are you laughing, Daddy?"

Bill closed the book carefully, the flower still tucked inside. "Watch your brother, will you, Lee?"

Lee and Zak both groaned.

"Why?" Lee complained.

Bill smiled. "I have to go next door for a minute."


	4. The Note

**Chapter 4: The Note**

* * *

Laura Roslin hated waiting.

The last few weeks before a new book came out were always the worst: _what if no one bought it? What if the critics panned it? What if everyone loved it, and the pressure of the expectations for her next book made it impossible for her to ever write another word?_

"I've been thinking about going back to teaching," she'd told her publicist that morning over the phone. "I don't know if I have another book in me."

Tory's heavy sigh held the weight of too many years spent coddling the talent. "Ms. Roslin, you say that after every book."

Laura hadn't stayed on the phone long after that.

A soft knock on the door startled her out of her musings. Laura never had unexpected guests. She didn't know anyone in this quiet little town; that was why she'd moved here.

But to her relief, there was no one at her door, only a neatly folded sheet of drafting paper slipped underneath, with one line penciled into the thick parchment.

_I can't wait to find out how you do me in._

Laura's snort of amusement took her by surprise. The note was unsigned, but there wasn't any doubt about who had left it–and frankly, she hadn't thought he had the sense of humor. She'd only left one of her pre-pub copies on his porch so she'd have a few weeks before the release date to find out if she was facing a lawsuit, or merely an icy, further estranged neighbor. She and Adama hadn't spoken since last summer, when he'd finally finished building the house and moved in. She'd seen him and his two small boys (and their overly vocal canine companion) come and go in the months since then, and she'd certainly _heard _them, and the cacophony of shouting and laughing and barking that she'd grown accustomed to resenting. But they had scrupulously avoided conversation–which suited her just fine.

But this…

Laura was a little curious now, herself.


	5. The Arrangement

**Chapter 5: The Arrangement**

* * *

"But there must be some mistake," Bill repeated.

The delivery woman looked at him over the top of the floral arrangement she held, a vase of fragrant blooms with _Condolences _scripted on dark ribbon wound around the stems.

"Maybe you should read the card," she pointed out helpfully.

Bill's face twisted, but he reached for the tiny card nestled among the carnations and lilies.

_If you've made it to chapter two–my apologies for the saw._

Bill couldn't hold back his bark of startled laughter…nor could he blame the alarmed delivery woman for getting back into her truck with a little more speed than was necessary.

It had been nearly a day and a half since she'd left _Murder at Daybreak_ at his door. Of course he'd made it to chapter two.

He'd already finished the book.


	6. The Bottle

**Chapter 6: The Bottle**

* * *

The wonderful thing about Qualai, Laura had found, was that she never had to worry about running into anyone who knew her.

Not in the way people thought; she could handle a few fans looking for autographs. No matter what reporters liked to write about her "reclusive tendencies," that had never been the problem with Caprica City.

It was the sympathetic friends she was looking to avoid.

She missed some things about the city where she'd lived for most of her life. Twenty-four-hour delivery. Decent Tauron takeout. The constant buzz and rush of life outside her apartment, of people going about their lives, heading to work, falling in love, making mistakes. She used to lie awake at night and listen, the white noise of it easing her sorrow, making her feel just a little bit less alone.

But, she figured, lugging her groceries up the steps to her house, if a little inconvenience, a little extra loneliness was price of not having to answer questions about how she was doing _since the accident_, she was more than happy to pay it–

And then she saw the bottle of wine placed neatly by her door.

A smile tugged at her lips, and she found herself moving faster than usual to unlock her door and get inside.

There was a sticky note taped to the underside of the bottle.

_On the contrary–I'm just relieved it wasn't the drill._

Safely alone in her house, Laura let herself laugh.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd enjoyed herself so much.


	7. The Invitation

**Chapter 7: The Invitation**

* * *

_I hate to drink alone._

Bill had been staring at the note tucked inside the wine glass left on his porch for nearly fifteen minutes.

It had to be an invitation, he told himself. Why else would she bother to leave it, unless she wanted him to come over and have a drink with her?

Unless he was reading this whole thing wrong…

"Dad, why are you staring at an empty glass?"

_Because I'm trying to work up the nerve to leave the front yard_ or possibly _Because I haven't been on a date since your mother, and I fear it might physically kill me_. But neither of those seemed the appropriate answer for a six-year-old.

"Grown-up business," he informed Lee.

Maybe it was his imagination, but his son looked a little skeptical.

He sighed and reached for his phone.

"Ellen," he began, "I know I promised I'd never ask you to babysit again, but.."


	8. The Surprise

**Chapter 8: The Surprise**

* * *

Laura's smile wilted when she saw the person on the other side of the door.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded.

Richard's smile was conciliatory–or it might have been, if she hadn't seen him employ that particular well-practiced gesture a thousand times before. "Come on, Laura. Is that any way to greet a friend?"

She leaned against the door frame, her arms crossed. "I meant what I said, Richard."

"I happened to be in the area–"

She lifted an eyebrow.

"You're not my only author, Laura."

She didn't argue…but neither did she move from the doorway.

His voice softened. "I worry about you. You move way out here, you don't return calls…"

"I'm fine." Her voice came out sharper than she'd intended. "I'm perfectly happy here."

Richard's lips quirked sardonically, and she remembered what had first drawn her to him, all those years ago. "You never were a good liar."

She returned his smile with a wry one of her own. "We can't all have your talent."

He dipped his head, an acknowledgement and a surrender. "Will you at least let me take you out to dinner?"

She shook her head, but gently. "I have plans."

He paused, and the rueful quirk at the edge of his lips deepened. "You'll send me the proposal for your next book when you have it, then?" he said finally.

"I will." She'd ended their romantic relationship a few months ago, but if Richard was willing to accept that–and after tonight, she had a feeling he would–she wasn't particularly looking to find herself a new editor. They worked well together; they always had.

She closed the distance between them, pressing a last kiss to his cheek. "Drive safe."

Richard might have been many things–unreliable, unavailable, _married_–but he'd been there for her when no one else had, and she couldn't forget that.

His gaze lingered on her face. "Goodbye, Laura."

She knew letting him walk away was the right decision, knew closing the door behind him was what she had to do. But it still stung.

Leaning against the closed door, she closed her eyes. Richard was right about one thing: she wasn't a good liar. She was grateful, at least, that he'd come tonight, a night she really did have plans.

Except, as it turned out, she didn't.

Bill never showed up.


	9. The Curtains

**Chapter 9: The Curtains**

* * *

"Dad, what are you doing?"

As a single parent, Bill frequently wished he had someone to turn to with questions about his children: _was this normal? Should he let them do that? Why did they _want _to do that?_–but above all else:_ did anyone else's kid ask so many damn questions as Lee?_

He paused, both hands stretching above his head, cursing the tall windows and vaulted ceilings that had been his own damn idea. "I'm putting up curtains," he answered his son, the thick ivory cotton hiding his face, muffling his voice.

"Why?"

Bill didn't read a lot of parenting books; he never had the time, and frankly, there was something about the flood of well-meaning advice that always seemed to make him feel less equipped to raise a child, not more. But even he was fairly certain that _because your father has no judgement when it comes to women_ was the wrong answer here.

Nearly two weeks had passed since that disastrous evening when he'd stepped across his yard, heart hammering, for what he'd stupidly imagined was a date…only to stop dead at the sight of Laura, standing barefoot in her open doorway, rising up on her tiptoes to share a kiss with a man Bill had never seen before, a cold feeling spreading in his gut at the easy intimacy of her posture, the casual way she inhabited his space.

He should have known better, Bill had told himself, backing away from her house like a child who didn't belong, his face burning, as he prayed that Laura hadn't witnessed his disappointment, his foolishness.

They hadn't spoken since.

Whatever had been going on between them–whatever he'd _thought _had been going on between them, Bill corrected himself–it was over. He'd already made enough romantic mistakes to last a lifetime; he didn't need to add any more to the list. He needed to leave her be.

And that would be much easier if he didn't have to see her making coffee every morning through his living room window.

Even in the early days of their marriage–before the kids, before the pills, before the nights she never came home–his ex-wife used to complain that he had no romantic spirit, and Bill had never doubted it. But there was something about the way Laura's long fingers curled around the mug, her eyes drifting shut as she brought the steaming cup to her lips, the pale early morning light streaking across her face, glinting off the red in her hair…

"Dad?"

"The light's bothering me," he told Lee.


	10. The Suitcase

**Chapter 10: The Suitcase**

* * *

Usually, Laura put off packing until bare hours before her departure, preferring to pretend until the last possible moment that the task would magically accomplish itself, or, even better, that the whole trip would be canceled and she'd get to stay home. Today, though, she found she was actually enjoying it, the knot in her stomach unclenching a little at each sweater and skirt nestled inside her suitcase.

The book tour would only last a few months, twelve weeks of readings across Caprica, Canceron, Virgon, even a few dates on Scorpia and Aquaria. Laura usually dreaded these things, and she knew that after a week or two of crowded spaceports and overspiced room service she'd be desperately counting down the days until it was all over. Just now, though, it seemed like a welcome break: from Qualai, from this neighborhood, from the ache in the pit of her stomach as she watched Bill come and go through her office window.

His constant presence grated on her, but it was herself Laura wanted to smack. She'd known better. She _should_ have known better. She'd worked hard to create a life for herself here in this quiet little town, safe within her work and her books and her neat little house. What had she been thinking, to risk all that, over some idiot with whom she'd shared only a single unpleasant meeting? Had she lost her mind? He wasn't unattractive, with those rich blue eyes against that sun-weathered olive skin, and those thick-muscled arms Laura couldn't help but have noticed….

But he wasn't her type, not by a long shot, and he had children, for frak's sake; two little boys whose persistent screaming and shrieking disturbed her writing and tore at her heart, dragging her traitorous mind to thoughts of another child, a little boy or girl who'd be about their age now…

It wasn't like she was heartbroken, Laura told herself. A few notes, a little flirtation did not a relationship make, and anyway, there wasn't enough left of her heart to break. Not anymore. Not since the night she'd gotten into the car with her father and two sisters, and only she had come home. Not since the morning after her baby shower, when she'd woken up in a hospital room with an emptiness in her belly and two police officers at the foot of her bed.

There was nothing left in the universe that could hurt her after that.

It was the lack of explanation that disturbed her, she decided. She liked writing mysteries, not living them. She'd thought there was something between them, and the suddenness of the rejection gnawed at her, like a scab she couldn't stop picking: what had she done wrong? When had he lost interest?

And then there was the question that lurked in the back of her mind, the question she kept avoiding, the one she hoped she could leave behind on Caprica: why did it bother her so much?


	11. The Window, Part I

_For Renee86 and anyone else who's wondering: Laura's sisters and her father were all killed in the accident, just like in canon. But in this universe, Laura was the one who was pregnant, and she was in the car, too. Never fear-Laura will have more to say about that as we go..._

* * *

**Chapter 11: The Window, Part I**

* * *

It wasn't the mistake that bothered him; kids broke things. It wasn't even the cash he'd have to shell out to get it fixed, even though construction projects had been scare lately and money was tight. And he did truly appreciate that Zak and Lee had come to him and told the truth, instead of lying about what had happened or hoping they wouldn't get caught; that was what really mattered, Bill told himself.

But out of all the trouble there was for two small boys to get into, why did they have to throw a pyramid ball through Laura's Roslin's window?

He stood in her backyard to survey the damage, feeling like a prowler, staring through her window into her empty home. She'd been gone for months, her house silent: no car pulling in or out of the driveway, no mail delivered, no garbage set out by the curb. In the first days of her absence, Bill had thought she'd merely gone out of town; now, he suspected she simply wasn't coming back. It should have helped not to be faced with the sight of her every day; instead, her unexplained disappearance seemed to keep her in his thoughts, a problem he could never quite solve, no matter how hard he tried.

The window was shattered; the shards still clinging to the frame would have to be taken out, and the pane would have to be replaced, Bill decided. But apart from the broken glass carpeting her living room floor and the pyramid ball wedged under a bookshelf, the damage didn't look too bad. He could fix it himself…if he had some way into the house. But Laura was gone, and he didn't have any way to get in touch with her. He had gotten to know quite a few people in this community as he was building his house, but not one of them seemed to know Laura; she kept to herself.

He could hardly leave her window broken indefinitely, not when he was responsible. But how…

And then a car pulled to a stop right in front of him, and not knowing how to reach Laura was a problem for which he was suddenly profoundly nostalgic.

She stepped out of the car, sliding off sunglasses to reveal a pair of green eyes that scrutinized him like a plate of two-day-old noodles she was trying to decide if she should dump down the drain.

"Can I help you?" she drawled, strolling with deliberate casualness to where he stood, planted stupidly by the broken window, a would-be burglar minus a getaway car.

He'd told himself, during her absence, that he was exaggerating her in his mind, but seeing her now–her coppery waves rippling over her shoulders, her pale green eyes clouded with suspicion, her exquisite lips turned downward in displeasure–Bill realized his memory hadn't done her justice.

He buried his hands in the pockets of his jeans, still covered in orange dust from the day's work, wishing he'd had a chance to change into something clean.

"My sons got a little over enthusiastic with a pyramid ball," he said, gesturing at the broken glass. "If I'd known you were home, I'd have had them come over to apologize themselves, but I'd like to say how sorry I am–"

She waved away his apology. "I'm sure it was just an accident." A faint glimmer of a smile quirked her lips. "I used to teach second grade. Kids break things all the time."

She came closer to peer through her own window at the damage, and he inhaled a soft flutter of jasmine and freesia, a scent of warm spring mornings and cool, quiet evenings.

He swallowed. "I'm happy to pay for the damage, but I could fix it myself–whatever you'd prefer."

She shrugged. "Don't worry about it," she said. "It's just a window."

His jaw tightened. "I insist."

She let out a breath, a long, measured exhale that seemed to represent a Herculean effort to hold onto her patience, and Bill felt his own patience slipping further from his grasp.

"Fine," she agreed, as though she were doing him a favor. "That will be fine."

"Then the boys and I will be over first thing in the morning," he grated out.

Alarm flashed in her eyes, a bright swirl of panic against the calm set of her features, and Bill felt his resentment deepen, take on new flavors. Zak and Lee had broken her window, sure, but they were good, decent kids–they didn't deserve to be treated like criminals. It had been an accident. She'd said so herself. What was she so afraid of?

"That's not necessary–"

"They made the mistake, and they'll help fix it," Bill interrupted. "It's a parenting decision."

She slipped her sunglasses back on, the gesture a clear dismissal. "Fine," she said, her tone flat. "I'll see you tomorrow."

He turned on his heel without another word and walked away, appealing to all the gods of the universe to explain to him what the hell he'd done wrong this time.


	12. The Window, Part II

**Chapter 12: The Window, Part II**

* * *

Before _that night_–and her life would forever be divided up into before and after _that night_–Laura had had a gift with children, a natural ease that had served her well: as the oldest of three daughters, as the best babysitter on the block, as the most popular teacher at Apollo Elementary.

Now, her smile stretching painfully across her face and her bright tone shrill even to her own ears, Laura felt like an actress who hadn't studied her lines: she could hear her cue, but she couldn't for the life of her remember what she was supposed to say.

They were there, in her living room, as promised, fixing the godsdamn window: Zak, a chubby dark-haired toddler, rifling through his father's toolbox, cheerfully making the whole process harder; Lee, an insistent little boy with wavy blonde hair and a thousand questions; Bill, irritable, taciturn, and, from what Laura could tell, doing all of the actual work.

"Who's the murderer in this one?" Lee asked, picking up yet another book off her desk.

Bill straightened up from the window pane. "Don't bother Ms. Roslin," he grunted.

They'd been there for barely half an hour, but Laura had been holding back tears since before they even stepped foot in the door, when she'd watched the three of them cross the driveway, two little hands grasped in Bill's big ones. Then Lee had proudly told her that his brother was four but he was six…and Laura had had to mumble something about coffee and flee to the kitchen, the inescapable calculation making her throat ache. _Her baby would be six now. _

Zak was camped out on the floor, his chubby fists clutching a hammer, his big brown eyes fixed adoringly on his father. That hurt. But it was Lee and his constant questions that stabbed at her heart: would her child be so talkative, she wondered? Would her son be that tall? Lee had his father's keen blue eyes–would her daughter have inherited her green ones?

Her smile felt like a grimace. "Please," she said. "Call me Laura."

(That sounded like something an adult would say to a child, didn't it?)

Lee was undeterred. "Who's the murderer in this one, Laura?"

Would her child be so curious about her work, she wondered? Except…she'd only written her first book after the accident, in those first months when days and nights and weeks had blurred together into one shadowy, pain-riddled fever dream, when creating her own world on paper, if only for a few hours, had been like clawing her way out of her own grave. If her baby had survived, would she have ever written a word?

"The butler," she managed through a dry throat.

"How?" Lee prompted.

"Poison," she heard herself answer.

"What's poison?" Zak asked.

"A bad idea," Bill replied, a warning in his eyes that might have been meant for Lee but felt like it was for her, instead.

Lee ignored him, holding up her third novel, _Blood at the Black Market_. "Did you like this one, Dad?"

Bill, bent over his toolbox, mumbled something unintelligible.

"Dad read all your books," Lee informed her.

Bill straightened under her curious gaze, a faint flush spreading across his pitted cheeks. "I like mysteries."

Laura took a sip of coffee, ignoring the flutter in her chest. It didn't matter if Bill liked her books, she reminded herself; he didn't like _her_, and thank the gods for it. She couldn't have withstood any kind of a relationship with him, couldn't possibly have survived family dinners and weekend picnics and little hands pulling at hers.

"I don't," she said at last. "I like knowing the answer."

They didn't speak again.

* * *

Late afternoon sun was slanting through the shiny new window when Zak hugged her goodbye on the porch, Laura hoping that her trembling–from too many cups of coffee, from too many peripheral flashes of a child that wasn't, of a life that hadn't–wasn't as obvious to him as it felt to her.

"Thank you again," she said, carefully extracting herself from Zak's chubby arms.

Bill nodded. "It was the least we could do."

In another life, Laura knew, she would have thanked him again; would have smiled at the boys, would have told them how impressed she was with their work. Maybe she would have invited them over for dinner, as a thank you; maybe Bill would have reciprocated; maybe, after the boys had been put to bed, they'd have cracked open a bottle of wine, and she'd have let Bill Adama tell her all about mysteries.

In this life, she nodded, and then she turned away, the door barely closing behind them before she was crumpling against it, her hand pressed to her mouth, her tears unseen by an empty house.


	13. The Car

**Chapter 13: The Car**

* * *

The nauseous crunch of metal on metal broke Qualai's hushed mid-morning stillness, Bill's hissing curses a quiet but colorful counterpoint: as his neck thrust forwards, then snapped back under the force of the collision; as he kicked the door of the car open with one heavy construction-booted foot and slammed it furiously behind him; as he stalked around the back of the car to asses the damage and confront the frakwit who'd just rear-ended him.

It wasn't even ten in the morning, and it'd already been a real bastard of a day.

First Zak had kept him up all night, sick with what Bill devoutly hoped would prove to be merely a twenty-four-hour virus, and not a more lengthy variety. Then, _just_ when Bill had finally eased Zak into sleep–stretched out across Bill's bed, naturally–Lee had appeared in the doorway of his room, mumbled something about "not feeling so good," and promptly thrown up all over the carpet. Three hours, two laundry loads of sheets, and a pleading call to Saul to sit with the kids for an hour later, Bill had been on his way out to a meeting with his new client…only to get a call as he was pulling out of the driveway that his would-be clients were pulling out of the project.

It was one thing to lose all his money in his own divorce, Bill had seethed, slamming his foot down on the brake irritably, his car halfway out the driveway, as he clutched the wheel tightly in his clenched fists. (His divorce had been finalized nearly two years before, and certainly sole custody of his children was worth any price…but it didn't stop Bill from resenting each and every invoice from Lampkin and Associates.) But he'd been counting on this project, and now, just because Helena and Gina had decided to pack it in instead of building their dream house, he wasn't sure how he'd cover his mortgage payment this month…

And then some frakker had hit his godsdamn car.

The back of his car was crushed in, the paint around the dent badly scratched, a myriad of tiny white scars hatch marking the formerly gleaming finish. _Frak_.

When he turned his attention to the other driver, he couldn't help the warm glow of righteous indignation, of having at last honed in on a target worthy of his frustration, that rose, clear and shining, amid the tangle of weary, helpless worry.

_That woman_.

The front of her car was laced with scratches, flecks of paint trailing from the body like droplets of blood…but it was a far sight better than the battered mess of his own vehicle, and that just made his pulse beat faster, made the angry mass in his chest burn hotter.

She was still in the car, still staring straight ahead, white knuckles still clutching the wheel. But she didn't appear injured, and that was all the opening he needed.

"What the hell was that?"

She didn't respond, her body motionless, her eyes unfocused.

"You slammed straight into me," he thundered. "Do you not bother to look where you're going, or do you generally just crush everything in your path?"

She glanced up at last, confused green eyes flickering to his, but she didn't move, didn't unbuckle her seat belt or even turn off her car, and privately, Bill was pleased. He had quite a few things left to say.

"I have children," he barked, the sense of finally being on the right side of an argument with this woman a balm to his soul. "What if they'd been in the car? What if they'd been playing in the driveway?"

Her hand rose unsteadily to her mouth, and it flashed through his mind, belatedly, that she might be more hurt than he'd realized.

"Are you all right?" he asked at last, his voice gruff.

She reached, finally, to turn off the engine, her trembling fingers faltering on the turn of the key.

He shifted uncomfortably. "Look, it's possible I stopped a little suddenly–"

"It was completely my fault," she interrupted. But there was a tremor in her voice, a wild waver breaking her normally clear, measured tones, and he felt something unpleasantly close to guilt slither in his belly. "I apologize. I'll pay for the damage."

He felt a faint flicker of humor at the familiarity of her words. "You insist?"

She didn't smile. "I was distracted, I wasn't paying attention. I'm usually much more careful…not that that's any excuse–"

They were not friends. Apart from her books–and Bill wasn't quite fool enough to believe that reading her murders gave him any special insight into her soul–the extent of their relationship had been a few (largely unpleasant) encounters. But there was a vacancy, a blank numbness smothering her green eyes that brought an unexpected ache to his chest.

He forced a smile, incongruous though it might be, for this moment, for them, for the woman who always seemed to coax out his very worst. "Laura, I forgive you."

He wasn't sure he'd ever used her name before, and he was positive he'd never tried to make her feel better; even so, he knew his bungling effort had been the right choice, could see it in the wry gratitude in her eyes and the almost-smile forming on her lips. But the tears glinting in her eyes were unsettling, and the trembling hand that reached up to brush them away chilled him.

Her fumbling fingers found the catch of her seat belt and she reached for the door, her movements halting, unsure. Instinctively, he held out his arm to steady her as she got out of the car and on her feet. "Are you all right?"

Her lips curved ruefully at the naked concern in his voice, but she didn't meet his eyes.

Bill tightened his grip on her arm and began to lead her back up her driveway. "Let's get you into the house."

Whatever was happening here, it wouldn't be fixed standing out in the street. Maybe she needed a doctor…although he was positive she hadn't hit him that hard. A friend, maybe? Maybe she'd let him call that man he'd seen on her porch…even though Bill hadn't spotted him in all the months since…

But Laura straightened, stepping out of his grasp. "Thank you," she said, her voice steady, wrapped under tight control once again. "But I'm fine. Send me the bill for your car, would you? I really do insist."

And then she was gone, the door closing behind her, and Bill was left behind, yet again, wondering, as always, just what had happened.


	14. The Tea

**Chapter 14: The Tea**

* * *

Every year, Laura promised herself that she wouldn't let this day leave her in pieces, and every year, she let herself down, the weight of this particular date heavy in her thoughts, crushing her fragile resolve to _move on, for frak's sake, it's been six years._

But ending the day groveling in Bill Adama's kitchen had to be a fresh level of failure, uncharted territory in making a fool of herself.

To his credit, he hadn't brought up the damage to his car once this evening, nor had he made any further references to the whole thing being her fault. He hadn't said much of anything, in fact, since she'd appeared on his doorstep, except to invite her in, and offer her a cup of tea.

She still wasn't sure why she'd come.

Maybe it was the raw fury on his face when he'd reminded her that her carelessness could have harmed his children. Maybe it was the unexpected gentleness in his voice, as his growl of righteous indignation had given way to a soft rumble of concern. Maybe it was the steady pressure of his hand under her arm, as she'd remained frozen, the air suddenly thick with smoke and the sound of her sisters' screams, as the world without warning shifted off its axis to tear her apart, blood and bone and mind melting into one searing, consuming inferno.

Maybe, tonight, she was a little afraid to be alone.

He hadn't even asked why she'd come, not quite, although the question had been in his eyes since he'd opened the door.

She wished she knew what to say.

"I have green or black," Bill said, breaking into her thoughts to hold up two battered, slightly dusty boxes–tea wasn't a staple in the Adama household, apparently.

Underneath the table, Laura squeezed her fingers together, trying to stave off the memory of her sister's cozy kitchen, its crowded cabinets stuffed with a dozen different blends: Sandra's personal panacea for all ills, from dry skin to bad boyfriends.

"Surprise me," Laura replied, her throat painfully dry.

She watched him shrug and place two green tea bags–a generic blend that Sandra wouldn't have been caught dead drinking–in a pair of mismatched mugs and pour boiling water over them, the steam momentarily obscuring the confusion on his face. He sat down across from her and set down their cups, leaving the tea bags still floating in the water, a habit that Sandra had scolded her for a thousand times.

Laura brought her hand to her mouth and swallowed hard, her longing for her sister so fierce in that moment it made her physically sick.

Bill was still waiting.

She cleared her throat. "I wanted to apologize again," she managed. "And to assure you that you don't have to worry about Zak and Lee playing outside. I'm–I'm usually a very careful driver, and I'll certainly be more so in the future."

Bill was silent, his blue eyes unreadable over the cup held to his lips.

Laura cupped her mug in both hands, hoping it hid the trembling in her hands. Her eyes slid away from Bill's, to rest on a knot in the kitchen table, a warped place where the wood would never be quite smooth.

"And I wanted to apologize for my behavior," she said at last. "I was…in an accident, years ago. What happened this morning shook me up a little. I'm not–" she heard the bitterness staining her voice, and hated it–"I'm not usually like that, either."

"Were you badly hurt?" Bill ventured at last, his deep voice more gentle than she would have believed. "In the accident?"

Laura didn't know how to condense three coffins into a few words, how to describe months of halting recovery, how to talk about the faded scar on her abdomen or the grainy sonogram picture she kept still, tucked away inside a book on a high shelf, just out of reach.

She certainly wasn't about to tell him why an ordinary spring day, when nothing had happened to her at all, still made her ache.

"I was the only survivor," she said instead.

She head his quick inhale, the soft, slow exhale. "I'm sorry."

Of course he was. They always were, and it never did her any good at all.

She never should have come.

She set her tea carefully down on the table. "I should–"

"I loved your book."

She paused. "Excuse me?"

"I loved your book," he repeated. "All of your books, actually. Lee was right. I read every one of them. And I lied. I don't usually read mysteries."

She studied him: the careful blue eyes behind plain, unpretentious frames; the deep creases marking his bronzed skin and the finer lines forming around his eyes; the tension in the set of his powerful shoulders; the thick calloused fingers gripping his cup.

When his gaze found hers, for the first time, she didn't look away.

Slowly, she picked up her cup again.

"I love this house," she said in reply, glancing around at the high wooden rafters, the tall windows, the soft creamy walls. "I wasn't thrilled with the _process_–" she smiled ruefully–"but you have a beautiful home here."

His lip twitched. "You know…if you ever needed any work done at your place…"

Her cautious smile had become a knowing smirk. She didn't try to hide it. "I'll keep that in mind."

His blue eyes seemed to burn brighter under the dim lights. "Laura…" he began.

"Daddy!" a high voice yelled from upstairs. "Lee threw up on my floor!"

A chorus of barking followed this announcement, as though the dog wanted to make sure Bill was aware of this development, too.

"Dad…" a different voice moaned. "I think I'm going to be sick again…"

"The joys of parenthood," Bill muttered, passing a weary hand over his eyes.

Laura nearly laughed. "I'll leave you to it," she said, getting to her feet.

"Wish me luck," he sighed, already rummaging under the sink for a bucket.

She paused in the doorway. "Bill?"

There was an unspoken tension in the air, the hushed anticipation of clouds gathering, heavy with a rain that could draw out new buds or sweep away cities. She could back away from this, she knew, run for shelter, choose safety. There was still time.

But maybe either choice held its own risk.

Maybe, on today of all days, she could choose life.

"Would you like to have dinner with me tomorrow night?"

Bill's face clouded. "I'm not sure I can get a babysitter for two sick kids on short notice."

Or maybe she'd been wrong again, after all.

"Of course," she said, her voice deceptively steady. "I understand. Maybe some other time–"

"Could we make it the night after?" Bill interrupted, an unexpectedly nervous edge to his low voice. "I would really hate to have to cancel."

Slowly, she smiled. "I'll see you then. Seven o'clock. I'm cooking. Don't be late."

She turned away before he could reply.

She wasn't worried.

This time, she knew he'd be there.


	15. The Dinner

**Chapter 15: The Dinner**

* * *

He hated to wake her.

* * *

_He stood there on her porch in the fading purple light, wiping his damp palms on the worn thighs of his jeans. They were predicting an early summer, Bill had heard; even at this hour, the air was still heavy, still dense with moisture. Frakkin humidity, Bill told himself: surely that explained the sweat beading the back of his neck, the dry-cotton feel of his mouth, the percussion pounding in his ears…_

_He shifted uncomfortably, the creak of the faded wooden slats beneath him an unexpected tell, a betrayal of his outward calm. He could fix that, he thought, if he was ever invited back–_

_And then she opened the door, her smile warm and inviting, her coppery waves tumbling over her shoulders, gleaming against the deep crimson of her sweater…and he forgot how to think at all. _

* * *

He kissed her bare shoulder, tracing the thick pads of his fingertips along the delicate skin of her collar bone, the soft curve of her throat. An errant curl had fallen across her cheek in her sleep, and he lifted it gently, winding the silky strand around one calloused finger before tucking it tenderly behind her ear.

"Laura?" he whispered.

* * *

_Her house smelled like ginger and heat, and there was a heavy iron pot (large for a woman used to cooking for one, surely?) simmering on the stove, fragrant with a dozen spices he couldn't name; not now, not with Laura's eyes on him, with the way the small of her back rested against the counter, the way her fingers cupped the bowl of her wine glass while the other hand grasped an oversized wooden spoon, scraping the sides of the pot with a casual, absent ease. _

* * *

He cleared his throat, the gravely husk of his voice loud against the stillness of her bed, the nighttime hush of the neighborhood. He pressed a kiss to her temple, the beat of her blood soft and languid beneath his lips. "Laura? I have to go."

* * *

_She didn't talk about her family or her childhood, and her references to her life in Caprica City were only comparative: the traffic, the prices, the noise. _

_But the banked fires in her eyes sparked to life when she talked about her work, and he indulged himself in question after question about her new project. Death at the Dirty Hands, she was calling it so far, she said, although at this point it was just scribbled notes, a few scraps of plot, and an idea: a bartender named Joe, with a shady past and a gambling problem, and a corpse propped up on a barstool, left behind like a tip…_

_I can't wait to read it, he said out loud, his hand reaching across the table to cover hers, his rough fingers smoothing the creases of her knuckles, finding the soft hollows between her fingers. _

_She laughed, a little self-conscious, a faint flush rising high on her cheeks. I have to write it first, she said. _

_Her fingers intertwined with his, her skin cool against the heat of his palm. Tell me about you, she said. _

_He didn't talk about his marriage, or his divorce, and he didn't mention his ex-wife by name. _

_He talked about seeing forms in his head and learning to shape them on paper; about the hum in his chest as a building in his mind came to life under long days of sweat and sore muscles and sun-darkened skin; about the deep satisfaction of seeing a family safe and warm in a house he had made for them, a home where there had been only an empty patch of earth. _

_He talked about his sons: Lee, always watching, always thinking, always wanting to know what came next; Zak, so confident, so sure, never sparing a thought for the moment after this one. _

_He watched the tides change in Laura's eyes as he spoke, sea-green clouding with memories she didn't share; not now, not yet. _

* * *

Her eyes fluttered open, blinking in the darkness as she took in his presence, his words, his clothes, put back on while she'd been sleeping, and her momentary confusion flickering into a resigned understanding. She pulled herself up on her elbows, wrapping the sheet higher around her body and passing a hand over her riot of auburn curls. "I see."

* * *

_Neither of them had touched their food, but there was a sense that the meal was winding down, that they couldn't stay paused in this moment forever. Laura had fallen silent, watching him, her chin propped in her hand, a quirk to her lips that made his pulse race. _

_He got to his feet and held out of his hand for her plate. Let me get that, he said. _

_It was the least he could do. _

_But he was a little too far away, and somehow in moving around the table to reach him, Laura's legs tangled up with his. He could feel the beat of her heart inside his ribs, that red sweater soft against his cheek…_

_And then Laura was pulling him down on the table, and their plates were forgotten, once again. _

* * *

The words tumbled over one another, tripped each other up. "No–it's not–the babysitter–"

The skeptical tilt of Laura's head reminded him of a recurring dream in which he was back in architectural school, and he'd forgotten to turn in any of his sketches.

"I was hoping–"

If she hadn't already decided he was an idiot, this would seal it–but…

He rolled the dice.

"Would you have lunch with me tomorrow?" He swallowed on a dry throat. "I can clear my afternoon, and the kids will be in school…and you made all that lovely food we didn't eat…"

She pulled a pair of glasses off her bedside table and pushed them up her nose with the tip of one finger.

He counted six rapid heartbeats before she spoke.

"I'll be at your door at exactly twelve-thirty," she informed him. "And _you're_ heating up the leftovers."

He smiled broadly. "One of my many talents." He leaned over the bed to kiss her goodbye, a deep, lingering kiss that he hoped told her things he couldn't. Not yet.

"I'll see you in thirteen hours," he promised.

He was halfway down the stairs when her wry voice floated after him.

"I've already killed you once, you know," she called. "I would hate to think what I would do if I were _displeased_."

He grinned–and he kept walking.

He wasn't worried.

After tonight…he was already dead.


	16. The Call

**Chapter 16: The Call**

* * *

She'd been looking forward to this all day.

Laura settled back against the thick cushioned headboard of the unfamiliar bed, her phone already lifted to her ear. She'd made herself wait until she got back to her hotel, until after her shower, until she'd placed a call to room service for a plate of pasta and a glass of wine. Now…

She waited, listening to the dial tone, shameless anticipation thrumming through her veins to the tips of her fingers. She could see the lights of Caprica City through her window, warm and bright in the gathering darkness, like a bonfire burning against the sky, an ancient talisman to ward off her demons till morning.

It was always strange to come back here, even just overnight. Even after all this time, Caprica City still felt like home…and home still held too many ghosts.

A familiar low voice interrupted her thoughts. "Hey."

She could hear the sounds of Zak and Lee squabbling in the background, and then the noise quieting as Bill drew away to somewhere more private–his office, she guessed.

"Hey," she answered, teasing, trying to match his deep tone.

In the eight weeks since that first dinner, these nightly calls had become something of an unspoken ritual between them on the nights they weren't together. He called after dinner, or after he put the kids to bed; she dialed between chapters, or when she'd given up wrestling with her new manuscript for the day. Their conversations rarely lasted long–a few scant minutes, a story or two shared–but his rough voice soothed her long lonely days like a bedtime story or a stiff drink.

She wondered if he felt the same way, or if these calls were just another obligation to him, another item to be scratched off his to-do list.

She could hear the smile in his voice when he answered. "How'd the meeting go?"

She shrugged, even though he couldn't see it. "About how these meetings always go. I pitched my idea for the new book, even though we all know the final product will probably be something completely different, and they cautiously approved it, amid a series of veiled references to books my competitors are coming out with that will all probably sell better."

"Your books are bestsellers," he grunted. "What more do they want?"

She smiled at the indignation in his voice. "How was your day?"

He paused, and she could picture him taking off his glasses and wearily rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Long. Viper got into the garbage and threw up egg shells and coffee grounds all over the house. Zak woke up and decided he won't eat anything but grilled cheese sandwiches sliced into perfect triangles. Saul let Lee watch a documentary on the Cylon War when he sat with the kids last night and this afternoon I got a call from Lee's teacher that he went in to school this morning and told his kindergarten class they were all going to be blown up by robots."

Laura laughed. "At least it was educational."

She heard Bill's snort. "I got a call from some new potential clients, though. Some people called the Agathons. Want me to renovate their lake house."

The Roslins had rented a lake house every summer of Laura's childhood: a cramped, ramshackle little place twenty miles from even the worldly sophistication of the nearest gas station. The mosquitoes had been fierce, the air conditioning nonexistent, and the outside stimulation zero. As teachers, Edward and Judith Roslin had had their summers off, and they'd preferred to spend their days enjoying the peace and quiet–Edward reading, Judith painting, both of them fussing over their tiny patch of vegetable garden–leaving Laura in charge of her two baby sisters.

Sometimes those days felt like another lifetime, another Laura altogether; she would pour over photographs, clinging to fading scraps of memory, trying to call into being her father's voice, her mother's scent, her sisters' giggles. But sometimes…sometimes it was like she was still there, a little girl sitting on a pier, two littler girls on either side, heat on their sunburned shoulders, their legs dangling in the cool water, as they named the fish swimming past their feet.

"Laura? You still there?"

"I'm here," she managed.

He was so different from Richard, she mused. Richard could talk for twenty minutes without needing anything but the most perfunctory hum of interest in response. Richard would never have noticed her momentary lapse, and if he had, she'd have covered without thinking: "Just thinking about a story idea," she'd claimed a thousand times. And Richard would smirk–"You never stop working, do you?"–and nod, and go back to what he was saying.

But Richard knew about the accident; even if they went months without mentioning it, it wasn't something she had hide…and it wasn't something she had to explain. The shadow on her heart was something Richard had tacitly accepted, the same way she had never questioned his marriage. It hadn't been loveless, exactly; she'd cared about Richard, in her way, and she knew he'd cared about her. But they knew what they were to each other, too: a bandage over separate wounds, a salve for unshared pains.

But with Bill…

She'd never lied to him. She'd never pretended her parents or her sisters were still alive, never made up a story about why she'd quit teaching and started writing. She didn't have to; Bill never asked. He didn't press her for answers she wasn't ready to give, and she was grateful for it. They talked about other things: her books, his work, her day, his kids…

It was lovely. It was cozy. But it wasn't…intimate. It couldn't be. Not with someone who knew her, but didn't know the night that had shaped who she'd become. Not with a man who shared her bed, but not her secrets.

She cleared her throat. "Sorry, I thought I heard room service…you going to take it?" she asked, her voice deliberately casual. "The job, I mean?"

He paused, and she wondered if he could hear it, the false note in her voice. Richard never had. But then, with Richard, it wouldn't have bothered her if he had.

When she'd finally ended it, she'd known he'd been sorry, and she'd known he would miss her…but she hadn't been so naive as to think he'd feel the absence for long. For her part, it had been a relief to be done with him: done with clandestine phone calls and anonymous hotel rooms, yes…but also to be done with Richard himself, done with the inherent pretense of their relationship, the empty convenience of their connection.

That hadn't been intimate, either.

But then, she hadn't wanted it to be.

"I haven't seen the site yet," Bill replied. "I never take projects blind. From what they said, the place sounds like it's fallen into serious disrepair: storm damage, mildew, pipes are shot, the floors will all have to be ripped up…"

With a pang, Laura wondered what had become of her family's lake house in all these years, if it had been loved, taken care of…or if it was lost now, too.

"Sounds like a lot of work," she reflected.

"Maybe. But…" He paused. "Sometimes it can be very satisfying to take something broken and make it beautiful again."

She leaned back against the headboard, her eyes closed. She couldn't tell him about the accident. Not over the phone, not after only two months. But maybe…maybe she could make a start.

Maybe she could be a little brave.

She gripped the phone tighter, the edges digging into the pads of her fingers. "I went to a lake house every summer growing up."

She wondered if Bill could hear the tremor in her voice, or if the connection was too poor, if he didn't know her well enough yet…but if he thought anything was off, he didn't comment on it.

"It was pretty broken-down, too," she continued. "The pipes were always leaking and the showers were always cold and the power went out practically every time it rained…but it was a good place." Her throat tightened. "A good memory."

In the moment's silence that followed, she suddenly ached for the comfort of his physical presence: the touch of his rough hand on her shoulder, the feel of his lips against her neck, his warmth of his body beside her in the bed.

"I'll keep that in mind," he promised, the gravity in his deep voice like a gentle kiss on her forehead.

Her fingers relaxed, and when she spoke, her voice was steady. "I have an interview in the morning, but I should be back by evening…I'll call you when I get in, okay?"

"Drive safe," Bill ordered, his tone unexpectedly soft.

She smiled, even though he couldn't see it. She didn't know if he'd always said that, or if he'd just picked it up from her…but the quiet tenderness in his voice spread a honeyed warmth through her chest.

"I'm seeing the lake house tomorrow, I'll let you know how it goes," he added. "I think the Agathons mentioned they had a little girl–maybe I can fix their place up into something that'll be a good memory for her someday."

Her chest tightened. And there was another thing she didn't know how to say.

Bill was a few years older than she was, but they were both still relatively young–young enough that he might well be hoping for more children in his future. They hadn't discussed it; it was way too soon. They were just getting to know each other, just learning how, or if, they fit into each other's lives…

But sometimes, when she heard the fond exasperation with which he spoke about his sons, when he traced kisses down the scar between her hips, happily ignorant about the damage it signified…

The cold reality that she could never carry another child was beginning to feel like a lie, too.

She bit her lip. "Good luck," she said, the words coming out automatically, by rote, just the way they would have with Richard. "I'll see you then."

She hung up before he could hear the tears in her voice.


	17. The Question

_Just a heads up-we've caught up to the part I haven't written yet, so updates are going to be a little slower now. But here's an extra-long chapter to tide you over..._

* * *

**Chapter 17: The Question**

* * *

He wished he understood her better, that was all.

Laura Roslin wrote 2500 words a day, every day. She drank her coffee black and her water without ice. She prized punctuality. She shivered when he lifted her hair up to kiss her neck. Her descriptions of blood stains were so poetically rendered he wanted to read them out loud to acquaintances on the phone. Her toothbrush was green.

And she was driving him out of his mind.

Her nightly phone calls had become a ritual for him, a bright spot in the lonely hours after the kids were in bed, when he poured over sketches and lists and calendars until his eyes ached. Their conversations weren't long–he'd never been much of a phone person–but her wry updates on her work in progress made him smile, and her gentle inquiries about construction sites or Zak's cold or Lee's field trip lightened a day's worth of little aggravations.

Their evenings together had swiftly become the best part of his week. He loved talking to her, no matter what the subject: religion, politics, Laura's latest research on untraceable poisons…

He'd built his house from scratch, shaped it to be a home for himself and his boys. He'd wanted it to be a place where they could have the childhood he hadn't, where they could play outside, make messes, be kids…a house they would (he hoped) look back on someday as a place that they'd been happy, a place that they had always, would always, belong.

But it was only in Laura's bed, beneath her clean white sheets, that he felt at home.

He loved to run his fingers through her hair, palms overflowing with soft red curls. He loved drifting off to sleep with her long legs still wrapped around him. He loved the loose, unfettered sound of her laughter, heard so very rarely; he loved the sardonic quirk at the edge of her lips that made him want to kiss them. He loved looking out from his bedroom window and knowing that even if he couldn't see her that day, she was close by.

But in so many ways, she was still a stranger.

Her books began with beautiful dedications to people she never mentioned. He had no idea why she'd left Caprica City, much less how she'd wound up in Qualai. She never wanted him to stay the night. (He couldn't; he had kids to get home to, a babysitter to relieve, a dog to walk for the night…but there was something, always, in the brisk finality of her goodnight kiss that made him think that their arrangement was exactly what she wanted.)

Even Bill's keen architect's eye didn't help him; her home seemed to be designed to give no clues about the woman who inhabited it. It was lovely enough, in its way, all ivory shades and light woods and open spaces…but there was something soulless, something empty in its design. Her bedroom, for example: pristine white carpet; her big wooden bed, spread with its ivory comforter; her pale night table, bare but for a single lamp, a book, and her glasses; the two tall matching bookcases, which held only books…where were the personal touches? The pictures? The mementos? The _history_?

He could fall in love with her. But he wasn't sure he knew her.

He couldn't allow that to happen. Not again.

He'd met Carolanne in a dingy Tauron bar he'd wandered into the night of his father's funeral, desperate to be away from the crowd at his family house, not quite ready to be alone with his thoughts. The girl behind the bar had been warm and sympathetic, laughing with him over his family stories, brushing her short blonde hair behind her ears with perfectly shaped fingers, her hands lingering on his as she handed him shot after shot. He remembered stumbling up the stairs to her nearby apartment, pressing her up against the door in the darkness…remembered her shoving piles of clothes off her bed with a careless shrug before pulling him down on the bed with her…remembered kissing her goodbye in the morning, thinking that she was the only thing on the whole planet he was sorry to be leaving behind.

Two weeks later, she followed him to Caprica; eight weeks later she was pregnant, and they were getting married.

He hadn't really known her, not really: hadn't known the wild flares of her temper, hadn't understood her craving for stimulation, for excitement…hadn't known that living with Carolanne meant keeping a watch for red flags, required a constant effort to keep the peace. He'd never guessed how hard it would be for her to stop drinking while she was carrying Lee, hadn't imagined how many times he'd come home to find her suspiciously glass-eyed, tiny plastic bottles carefully buried in the trash, every drop sucked dry.

She was bored, she'd rage at him, when he'd walk in the door, long after dark. She hadn't come all the way from Tauron to sit around a crumby little apartment all day and all night, waiting for a husband who only wanted to work, and then collapse into bed. She didn't know anyone on Caprica, and they didn't have any money for her to go anywhere or do anything. She was lonely.

She'd hoped for more when she'd married him, too.

Maybe he and Carolanne could never have worked; maybe their marriage had been doomed from its reckless, blurry beginnings. But she hadn't been wrong: he'd failed her. He should have known that bright, beautiful girl, practically humming with her lust for adventure and travel and fun, would never have been happy playing devoted wife and responsible mother. He should have known his long work days and constant preoccupation would fuel a resentment in her that they would never be able to overcome. He should have realized his real love was building things, and not tried to make someone else his wife.

Even now, after the way things had ended, he couldn't help but wonder how much of it had been his fault. If he hadn't been so focused on his burgeoning architectural business–if he'd been around more, given Carolanne the attention she so desperately needed…would it have made a difference? (He'd told himself, at the time, that all those long hours had been for her, for the family they'd soon have. _Bullshit_, Carolanne had sneered. _It's just easier than being here._ Now, when single parenthood had forced him to reorder his priorities, he could admit it: she'd been right.) What if he'd made more of an effort to help her make friends on Caprica, introduced her to people, helped her to make this place her home? What if he'd taken her out more, where he could watch her, make sure she wasn't getting into trouble?

For a while, after Lee had been born, things had been better. Or at least…he'd thought so. They hadn't fought as much. Carolanne had seemed happier. There'd been no empty bottles beneath the bathroom sink or stashed behind rows of shoes in her closet. He'd thought that motherhood had changed her, that they were finally becoming the family he'd always believed they could be.

He hadn't known about the pills then…or about the neighbor who was watching Lee while Carolanne spent her afternoons and evenings at a bar downtown. He'd just thought she'd seemed happy again. (Now, he realized, she had been…just not with him.)

Bill couldn't think of either of his children as a mistake. But if Lee's imminent arrival had been the catalyst for their marriage, Zak's conception, a mere fifteen months after his brother's birth, was the final nail in its coffin. Even before she started showing, Carolanne's resentment burned bright: _how could he have done this to her again? Wasn't it bad enough that he'd stuck her with one child? _(He'd thought that night had been a mutual carelessness, both of them swept away by sentiment…but Carolanne's bitterness quickly disabused him of that notion. Later, he would wonder if she'd been high that night, and he just hadn't seen it–but Carolanne had become a master at hiding her vices from him by then. Maybe he'd never know.)

Her belly ballooned, and everything spun out of control: pills spilled on the bathroom sink, the scent of other men in his house when he walked in the door, nights when she didn't come home at all. They fought daily, ferociously. He hadn't realized how much she'd grown to hate him; he was shocked at how deeply he'd come to resent her. He no longer thought about putting their marriage back together; he thought about getting through this day, this night, this week.

The last months of her pregnancy were an uneasy truce: she finally agreed to accept help for the pills (_only till the baby's born_, her eyes dared him), and he took over the cooking, the cleaning, and all responsibility for Lee, both of them counting down her third trimester like prison inmates sharing a cell. When it was finally over, and they handed Zak to Carolanne for the first time, she had sobbed aloud, tears falling from her eyes and running down his tiny, wrinkled little face. At the time, Bill had thought she was ashamed of her irresponsible behavior, of her bitterness towards this child she hadn't wanted. Now, he wondered if she'd already known what she was going to do.

Six weeks after Zak was born, he'd come home to a screaming infant and a wailing toddler…and a note on the kitchen counter.

She couldn't do it anymore, the note said, written in a shaky script that he would stare at for hours, wondering if the handwriting denoted sadness, regret…or if she'd just been in a hurry to be gone.

She was leaving. And she wasn't coming back.

She wasn't cut out to be a mother, she'd written. And she certainly wasn't cut out to be a wife.

He'd hated her. But in that moment, alone, staring wild-eyed at a two-year-old and a baby, wondering how the hell he was going to take care of them, he thought he might finally have understood her.

Sixteen months later, his lawyers finally tracked her down to start divorce proceedings. He offered a settlement; she didn't argue when he asked for sole custody of Zak and Lee. They didn't speak once.

There wasn't anything left to say.

He liked to think he'd learned something from all of that, that he understood where he'd gone wrong, that he was a different, wiser man for it.

But the thought kept nagging at him that maybe he was making the same mistakes.

He knew that Laura made him happy. But he'd thought Carolanne had made him happy, too, in the beginning. Laura worked hard at her job, and he knew she had the same love for her work as he had for his. They understood that about each other, accepted it…or so he thought. But then, Carolanne hadn't been jealous of his job in the first months, either.

He and Laura were older, though, he told himself. They were going slower, that was all. And it wasn't like he'd shared everything with her; she knew he was divorced, knew his ex-wife wasn't around…but he hadn't told her any more than that. How was he supposed to put the meltdown of his marriage into words? How was he supposed to explain that Zak didn't have any memories of his mother, and he wished that Lee didn't, either? How was he supposed to tell her how hugely he'd failed?

Maybe Laura's past was like that, too. Maybe there were things she didn't know how to say, either.

Or maybe her secrets were even worse than his.

He had his children to think of. Did Laura want children? He still didn't know. He hadn't wanted to push–_do you have any interest in becoming a stepmother _wasn't exactly first-date material—but they'd been seeing each other for several months now, and he felt no closer to knowing. She listened to his stories about Zak and Lee, asked about them sometimes…but in the same way she inquired after his latest design project, his difficult new client. She used to be a teacher, he knew that, and he assumed that meant she at least liked children in theory…but did she have any interest in raising her own, much less someone else's?

He wasn't going to bring someone into the lives of his children who didn't want to be there. Not again.

Either way, it was time he found out. If Laura didn't belong in his life, he needed to know it _now_, and not months from now, when he was too far in, when it was too late. (He was far too careful now to worry about a pregnancy…but oh, gods, what if he made a mistake? Bill wasn't entirely averse to the idea of another child…somewhere, _very _far down the road…but not accidentally, not ever again.) He had to be smarter this time. He couldn't afford to wait around until sentiment and wishful thinking got the better of him and colored his judgement. Not this time. Not again. Zak and Lee deserved better. If Laura didn't like that, and that was the end of them…well, he'd survive it. He'd survived worse.

He picked up the phone, and he waited.

When he heard the clear tones of her voice, the weight on his chest told him he'd already let this go too far. If this was the last time they spoke…

He knew he'd feel the loss every time he looked out the window, every time he caught of glimpse of red hair.

He didn't know how Laura felt about him. But in this moment, he knew how he felt about her.

But he couldn't be selfish anymore.

"Laura, are you busy?"

His heart was pounding in his throat, and he wondered what he was more afraid of: that she'd say no…or that she'd say yes.

He asked it anyway.

"I was wondering if you'd have dinner with the boys and me tonight."


	18. The Dinner, Part II

**Chapter 18: The Dinner, Part II**

* * *

From the moment she sat down at the table, Laura knew she'd made a mistake.

She should have canceled at the last minute (but there were simply very few believable last-minute novelist emergencies), should have said she had plans (but in her defense, how was she supposed to know that authentic Tauron cuisine with a six-year-old and a four-year-old had been what Bill had in mind?), should have said no, flat, straight out on the phone when he'd asked–no, she did _not _want to share a meal with the two younger Adamas, no, she was not ready, it was too soon–in this relationship, in her life, in her pathetically delayed, halting recovery–and no, if she couldn't stomach the idea of dinner, then she was clearly in no way ready for everything else tonight signified.

But even as her protests had flashed through her mind–or a far less eloquent _no no no_–she'd heard the undercurrent in Bill's tone, a quiet strain of regret softening his gravely voice...and she'd known that he didn't think she was up to task, either. He expected her to bail out. To quit. To run away.

She'd done it before.

Was that what she wanted?

It would be easy enough, she'd known, in the suspended silence that followed his invitation. Easy enough to choose the safe and the familiar, to stay sheltered behind her fortress walls.

Easy enough to let this warm, solid man go, to allow his bright blue eyes and rough, gentle hands to fade away, become a lingering regret, a quietly aching memory that seized her chest whenever she spied two little boys chasing each other around the backyard next to hers, or heard the gasp and sputter of a truck starting up in the driveway next door.

Easy enough to survive one more loss.

She'd done it before.

* * *

_It wasn't until he was folding her up in his arms that she realized how much she'd missed him. _

_She'd only been gone from Qualai for two days, and they'd spoken on the phone...but now, held against his sturdy frame, his thick, muscle-corded arms holding her to him, her face pressed into the warmth of his chest, as she inhaled a familiar scent of soap and sweat and fresh-cut grass..._

_It was like coming home. _

_He released her, and Laura regretted the loss of contact immediately, wanted to wrap her arms around his neck, wanted to tell him that this was the first time since she'd moved away from Caprica City that anybody had cared where she was._

_But something stopped her, froze her arms, silenced her voice in her throat._

_Bill stepped back, shrugging a little; embarrassed by his reaction, or hers, Laura didn't know. _

_She swallowed. "It's good to see you." _

* * *

So she'd said yes, and now here she was, trying to eat spicy noodles one-handed with a four-year-old in her lap and a dog curled across her feet, as a six-year-old quizzed her about the practicality of various murder weapons.

Bill, seated across the table and giving her the thousand-yard-stare, was no help; he'd clearly decided to let her sink of swim on her own. She couldn't say she'd never been fonder of him than she was in this moment.

"If you were going to kill somebody, how would you do it?" Lee asked, his chin propped on his little fist.

He was still holding his utensils, but his plate had barely been touched...but then, Lee's rapt attention was focused solely on her. Apparently he'd gotten a hold of his father's copies of her books, and, despite their being decidedly _not _for a six-year-old audience, had read every one. Laura still couldn't decide if she should feel guilty, or flattered-but Lee Adama, with the determination of a very tiny prosecuting attorney, had been issuing rapid-fire questions at her on the gruesome details of each fictional homicide since the moment she walked in the door.

Laura chanced a glance at Bill. His face was inscrutable. She couldn't decide if this was a test of how the boys did with her...or how she did with the boys.

And Laura Roslin, who'd been in the top five percent of her graduating class in both high school and college, did not fail tests.

Zak tilted his head up to focus his big brown eyes on her, although how much of the conversation he was following, Laura didn't know. Zak had hopped into her lap the moment she'd sat down, and hadn't budged since.

Laura hadn't held a child since before she'd lost the baby.

She'd tensed immediately, but Zak, warm and wriggling in her arms, hadn't seemed to care. She could smell the berry-scented shampoo wafting off his freshly-washed hair, and it made her ache, but it made her smile, too, thinking of Bill wrestling his two little boys into afternoon baths.

Maybe Bill _was _hoping to make a good impression, after all.

Bill hadn't made any attempt to get Zak into his own seat for dinner; he'd just pushed Zak's plate across the table. Laura hoped Zak wasn't picking up on her discomfort. She knew, with a hot roil of shame deep in her belly, that Zak's open kindness was better than she deserved.

"Laura?" Lee prompted.

Well, if Bill wasn't going to be bothered by this line of questioning, Laura, who had won the _Caprica City Times_ "Best Decapitation" award two years running, certainly wasn't going to be squeamish about it.

She tilted her head to the side, making of show of thinking the matter over. "I don't know, Lee," she said, her tone thoughtful. "How would _you _do it?"

Bill's eyebrows lifted, and she gave him a slow, smug smile in response. Maybe she was a little rusty, but she hadn't lost her teacher voice altogether, had she?

"I'd do it like Phelan in _The Ties That Cut_," Lee informed her, not missing a beat. "Chicken wire, around the throat." He slashed a finger across his throat to illustrate his point.

Zak wiggled in her lap, giggling at his brother's gagging noises.

Bill cleared his throat.

"No fingerprints," Laura said mildly.

Lee's proud smile spread across his whole face. "That's what I was thinking!"

Laura picked up her chopsticks. "Bill, these noodles are _delicious_," she said, casting him her very best parent-teacher-night smile. "You'll have to give me your recipe."

"Daddy bought those at the store," Zak whispered.

Bill grunted, an uncharacteristic flush spreading across his pitted cheeks.

A snort escaped her. "Then you'll have to give me your grocery store," she continued smoothly.

Lee laughed, and Laura felt a flash of affection towards him. It _was _sweet of him to have read her books so carefully, after all.

Curling an arm around Zak, careful not to dislodge him, she leaned towards Lee. "Maybe _you _should write mysteries," she suggested. "You clearly have the thinking for it."

Lee's grin of pure delight made her throat ache.

She used to love to make children smile.

Maybe...maybe she could learn to be good at it again.

* * *

"Time for bed," Bill announced for the third time, scooping a drooping Zak into his arms.

"I want Laura to put me to bed," Zak argued, his eyes drifting shut and his head falling against his father's chest.

"Can she read me a story?" Lee pleaded.

She smiled, and it hurt, like a muscle she hadn't exercised in a very long time. "Next time," she promised both boys.

"You're coming back?" Lee asked, his blue eyes-so like his father's-full of eagerness.

Laura let her eyes rest on Bill, on the clear question on his face.

She smiled, and it still hurt.

Maybe it always would.

But maybe...maybe it could feel good again, too.

"I have a feeling I might be invited back," she informed Lee.

Lee whooped, and Viper leaped up, barking at Lee, and Zak giggled, and Laura found herself thinking of her father, and whether he would have liked these kids as much as she did.

The open relief on Bill's face, so like the little face pressed into his shoulder, squeezed her heart.

"Maybe Laura would like to join us for pizza night on Friday," he suggested, watching her face, waiting to see if she'd invent some pretext or prior engagement.

One night, she knew, could be turned into nothing, just a dinner with a neighbor, just one evening out of all of their lives. Maybe the boys would wave to her when they saw her getting her mail; maybe she'd knock on the door if she saw that they'd left their bikes out in the rain.

If that was what she wanted.

But a second dinner...she could see it already. The four of them would share a pizza, argue over mushroom versus pepperoni; she would tuck Zak into bed, maybe make up a murder to tell Lee as he drifted off; afterwards, she would creep down the stairs (quietly, so as not to wake the kids) and she and Bill would curl up on the couch (not too close, not yet; nothing that would be a problem if Zak or Lee walked in), would share stories they couldn't tell in front of the boys, would laugh gently about dinner, about the funny thing Lee had said, or the way Zak had "accidentally" let Viper eat all his mushrooms...

Maybe Friday night pizza would become a tradition. Maybe, eventually, she'd become a regular at their dinner table on other nights, too.

Maybe, some night, Bill would ask her to stay over.

Maybe, some night, she'd say yes.

Her throat hurt, and she forced herself to say it anyway, before she lost her nerve, before she lost the moment.

Maybe she'd lost enough, already.

"I like pizza," she managed.


	19. The Question, Part II

_And for the guest who asked, Laura will be telling that story herself...but not quite yet._

* * *

**Chapter 19: The Question, Part II**

* * *

"So how'd you get away on a school night?" Ellen cooed, spinning backwards on the stool and leaning across Saul's lap to rest her elbow on the bar, the tips of her wavy blonde hair tickling Bill's sleeve. "I thought good boys were always home by eight."

The scent of tangy floral notes over an aggressive musk wafted off of her, combined with the sharp smell of ambrosia. Bill tried not to wince.

This was his second summer in Qualai, and his first since he'd finished his house. But it was Saul's hometown, the place where he'd grown up, spent formative years chasing balls through grassy fields and puking his guts out over swiped liquor. So if Saul deemed this the only bar in town worth patronizing, Bill respected his superior wisdom.

But the service was seldom quick, regardless of the number of customers, the lighting was poor (due to thrift, Bill guessed, not a desire for ambience), the air always smelled of spilled beer and sweat, and the décor consisted of a half a dozen faded Qualai Crushers jerseys hung from dusty paneled walls.

Maybe it was a place for which you had to have some nostalgia, Bill had long ago decided. Maybe Saul was more sentimental than he let on.

Saul, seated on the stool next to him, snorted at her tone, but didn't interfere. Whatever problems they were having—and Saul and Ellen had been having problems for as long as he'd known them—they were apparently trying to work things out.

Or, Bill amended, they'd _agreed_ to work things out, which meant Saul was freshly determined not to get pulled into another argument…and Ellen was newly bound on starting one.

Bill had long ago given up on advising Saul, either on improving his marriage or getting out of it altogether. Saul was his oldest friend, and Ellen was his wife; everything else, Bill had learned to live with.

He and Saul had known each other since architectural school, when they'd proofed each other's designs and dreamed of one day running their own firms. After his divorce, craving a fresh start, realizing that his responsibilities as a single parent would swiftly squeeze him out of the ultra-competitive Caprica City architectural scene, he and Saul had decided to go into business together, someplace where their talents would prove more profitable. They'd quickly settled on Qualai, a little town a few hours outside of the city, where Saul had contacts and connections, and Bill could afford to afford to buy land, build a house for Zak and Lee.

He took a slow sip of ambrosia, savoring the soothing warmth spreading through his chest. "The kids are with Laura," he said at last.

Ellen's wicked cackle blended with Saul's rasping chuckle. "Oh, _the kids are with Laura_," she repeated to her husband.

Saul cackled louder and pounded on the bar with one rough fist. "We're going to need another round," he called.

Bill took another sip and wondered why he'd been so glad to leave his nice comfortable couch and come out to a bar with these two, anyway.

Ellen held out her glass (empty, already), flashing the handsome young bartender a brilliant smile that brought an irritable flush to Saul's face. She leaned a little too far, and lost her balance, nearly falling off her stool before Saul steadied her with an arm around her waist. Ellen winked at the bartender and slid into Saul's lap.

"It must be getting pretty serious," she continued-still to her husband, to Bill's annoyance. "What haven't you been telling me, Saul?"

"He hasn't told me anything," Saul informed her, in a tone that was far too innocent for Bill's liking.

"Then he must _really_ like her," Ellen decided.

"He's certainly been seeing her plenty," Saul observed. "Lee says Dee's been watching them every Wednesday and Saturday night for weeks, and she's staying _late_-"

"Lee's six," Bill grumbled. "Everything after seven thirty's late to him."

"-and _apparently_," Saul went on, with the casual air of someone about to deliver a death blow, "this is the third week in a row that this woman's been over for Friday night dinner with Zak and Lee."

Ellen gasped dramatically.

Sourly, Bill held out his glass for a refill, but the bartender, absorbed in watching Ellen dangle one high heel off her painted toes, didn't move.

"Do the kids like her?" Ellen asked, wrapping one arm around her husband's neck, to the bartender's obvious dismay-not that he noticed Bill's empty glass then, either.

He needed a new bar, Bill decided.

And possibly new friends.

"Remember those grisly books Lee kept going on about?" Saul said into her neck.

Ellen raised an eyebrow. "When we thought he was becoming a serial killer?"

"_She_ wrote the books," Saul explained, banging his glass down on the bar to emphasize his point.

"Her name's Laura," Bill put in irritably.

Saul and Ellen ignored him.

"Lee's can't stop talking about her," Saul went on. "Apparently she told him _he_ should be a mystery writer, and now he's carrying this little notebook around with him everywhere, making notes on dismemberments and strangulations."

"Adorable but creepy," Ellen decided.

The bartender snorted.

"Do you mind?" Bill demanded.

The bartender flushed, quickly turning away to uselessly polish a glass.

Ellen wiggled her fingers at the bartender's retreating form. "What does Zak think?"

Saul shifted on the bar stool to pull her closer, Ellen giggling as her shoe fell off her foot.

"Apparently," Saul said into her ear, in a whisper loud enough to carry halfway across the bar, "she smells good."

Ellen's cackle nearly lost them their precarious balance; Saul had to grab onto the bar to steady them.

"Of course she does," she cooed. "I bet Bill thinks so, too."

Bill was already pulling cubits out of his wallet and throwing them down beside his glass.

Saul groaned. "Aww, Ellen, you've driven the poor man away."

"I _told_ you," Ellen returned smugly. "He _really_ likes her."

Her lips rested against Saul's stubbly cheek. "Ten cubits says he marries her within the year."

"We're not getting married," Bill growled.

Ellen waved away his protests with one well-manicured hand, but Saul's dark eyes were watching him closely.

"Not yet," Saul agreed. "But…"

"But _what_?" Bill snapped.

He shrugged. "But that _is_ where this is going, isn't it?"

Truthfully…Bill didn't know.

He liked Laura, certainly. He liked her quite a bit. And Saul wasn't wrong; the boys were crazy about her. Since that first dinner a few weeks ago, Zak and Lee were constantly clamoring to see her—_was it Friday yet? How about now? Was he sure she was coming? _Bill liked to think he had a little more subtlety to him, but he had to admit that he looked forward to their time together just as impatiently. Wednesdays and Saturdays had become their regular nights together, and the idea of losing that, of losing _her_, of returning to evenings alone in his study, without her warmth, her conversation, her humor…

He was coming to depend on her, and the knowledge nagged at him.

Not just for her physical presence (although Zak was right; she did smell really, really good: a scent of jasmine and freesia and the barest hint of amber that clung to his clothes, lingered on his pillow after one of the rare times, when the kids were out of the house, that she shared his bed.) But he was coming to count on her counsel, too: her perspective on Lee's stubbornness, Zak's tantrums, his client's rude comment on the job site. Carolanne had hated to hear about his work—_didn't it take up enough of their lives already?_ she'd complain. And they certainly never made parenting decisions together, never sat up at night and wrestled with bed times or TV privileges or how many cookies Zak could have before dinner.

Laura didn't tell him what to do, and they definitely weren't parenting together; Zak and Lee were his kids, not hers, not theirs. But he found himself talking things over with her more and more, and when she offered her opinion, he took it seriously. He often didn't _agree_ with it…but it was a relief, somehow, to debate these issues with Laura, someone he knew had Zak and Lee's best interests at heart, someone whose viewpoint he respected…

Carolanne had been his wife, but they'd never been partners, not in that way. But sometimes, when he saw Laura absently smoothing Zak's hair…when he listened to her carefully answering one of Lee's thousand questions…when her delicate eyebrows lifted, and he knew she was about to say something he wouldn't like…it was like catching a glimpse, just for a moment, of what that might be like.

But marriage…

Bill wasn't ready for that, not by a long shot. And he wasn't sure he ever would be again.

* * *

He opened the door to the sound of gentle snoring and soft, muffled laughter.

He'd been having dinner with Laura two nights ago when Saul had called and insisted on taking him out tonight.

"You never _do_ anything anymore," Saul had complained. "You're working, or you're with the boys, or you're with this Laura person—"

Bill had smiled apologetically at the woman herself, praying that Saul's voice wouldn't carry across the table.

"You're becoming an old man before your time," his oldest friend had warned. "Ellen and I are taking you out after work tomorrow night, whether you like or not."

"I can't, I have the kids," Bill had said automatically. "Dee babysits somewhere else on Mondays, and if I'm with you, _you_ can't do it."

Laura had caught his eye. "I'll watch them," she'd mouthed.

If he'd said no…it would have seemed like he didn't trust her, as though he didn't think she was equal to the task. He hadn't twisted her arm; she was offering. The kids adored her. She used to be an elementary school teacher, for frak's sake.

So he'd said yes…despite some private misgivings. What if it didn't go well? Zak and Lee were good kids…_mostly_…but they had their moments, as he knew better than anyone. What if Zak wouldn't go to sleep, and Laura spent all night wrestling him back into bed? What if Lee asked her so many questions she thought she'd go out of her mind? (Bill had certainly been there, and when Lee was excited—as he always was with Laura—it was a real possibility.)

And what if it went well, and the kids had _too_ good of a time? Maybe it was just one night to Laura, one favor for one boyfriend, but to Zak and Lee…what if they got too attached?

And is that what he was to her, anyway? He still didn't know. He could close his eyes and conjure up the exact constellations of pale freckles on her shoulders, could have sketched from memory the precise pattern of the scar marking her abdomen, the perfect slope of the line that dipped and faded to just above the button of her jeans. But how Laura felt about him, what she thought about their future…that was still hazy.

Maybe it wasn't just the kids he worried were growing too attached.

He set down his keys on the hall table and crept closer.

The living room was dark, the only illumination the flickering light of the television. Laura was sitting on the couch, the boys on either side, with Viper curled by her feet, snoring lightly. Zak was asleep, his little body sprawled out across the cushion, his head nestled in Laura's lap. Laura's hand rested on his dark hair, her fingers absently playing with the silky, sleep-tousled strands. Lee was on her other side, dressed for bed in his Viper pilot pajamas, his knees drawn up to his chin, his hands gesturing animatedly as he made some point about whatever show they were watching. Laura was laughing—quietly, so as not to wake Zak—nodding her head in agreement with Lee.

They both turned at the sound of his footsteps.

Laura's smile held a touch of guilt. "Lee was on his way to bed after this episode, I promise," she whispered. "But we just got so caught up—" She gestured at the screen, the silver bangle on her wrist catching the light. "The fate of the human race is at stake, you know."

Bill smiled, so she'd know he wasn't angry, hoping the tears in his eyes didn't show in the dim light.

He wasn't ready for marriage. And he wasn't sure he ever would be.

But in this moment, he longed to pretend: that Laura was his wife, that she was Zak and Lee's mother…that the cozy scene he'd walked into tonight was nothing special.

_They'd met in college, gotten married after graduation. She taught during the day, wrote her first book at night; he spent long days at job sites and quiet nights sketching and studying at a desk across the room from hers, close enough for them to exchange ideas, frequent touches. He opened his own business; she gave birth to their first son. Her book became a bestseller; she quit her job, wrote her second while pregnant with Zak. _

_He built this house for them: a study for his sketches and designs, an office for her books and notes, a big backyard for their kids to play in._

He cleared his throat. "But I'm home now," he said. "So if you have to go…"

Lee was pulling on her sleeve, pointing at the ship navigating through a star field on the screen. "Look, Laura, they're going into the black hole!"

Her smile turned impish. "But, Bill, they're going into the black hole."

Quickly, while Lee was facing the screen, Bill dropped a kiss to the top of her head.

"Let me get Zak into bed, then," he said, bending down to gather his sleeping son into his arms.

When he came back downstairs, Lee and Laura were cheering softly, the credits playing over triumphant, swelling chords.

"We saved the human race," Laura informed him.

"I'm relieved," Bill replied. "Time for bed," he told Lee.

Lee, for once, didn't argue. "Yes, sir," he said, scampering up the stairs. "Night, Laura!" he called.

Laura smiled. "Good night, Lee," she replied, more quietly.

She turned to him, and the smile on her face made him ache. "So how was your night?" she asked. "Are your friends still calling you old man?"

He didn't answer.

"Bill?" she prompted.

He took her face in his hands, leaning closer to press a kiss to her lips that said everything he couldn't.

"Laura," he said when he pulled away at last, his hands still cupping her face, "would you stay the night?"

He watched something flicker in her eyes, something he couldn't name…and then the doubts cleared.

He held his breath.

Slowly, she smiled. "I'd like that."


	20. The Dream

**Chapter 20: The Dream**

* * *

_She shifted uncomfortably, the pull of the seat belt painfully tight against her swollen abdomen. She slipped a hand beneath the snug material, trying to give herself a little breathing room._

_As if sensing her thoughts (and Laura wasn't quite convinced that the kid _couldn't_), the baby turned, pushing up into her rib cage. She let out a slow exhale, trying to breathe around the pressure._

_She didn't have any regrets: not about her decision to have this child, not about doing it alone, not about doing it now. If her mother's death from cancer, two years before, had taught her anything, it was this: the future could fall away at any moment. If she wanted something, she couldn't afford to wait, to delay. As long as she could remember, Laura had wanted to be a mother. If she waited to meet someone, to get married...what if it never happened?_

_She didn't want to wake up someday and realize she'd missed her chance at the life she'd really wanted. _

_She was thirty years old, she was settled, she had a good job teaching in the Caprica City public school system; she was ready for a child. So she'd done her research, picked out her sperm bank, and selected her donor. _

_She knew it wasn't ideal. She knew single parenthood would be difficult, knew she could only imagine the challenges ahead. But from the moment she'd watched the two lines form on the test, she'd been in love with this baby: with the swish of the heartbeat at every doctor's appointment, with the first gentle curving of her abdomen, with those first tiny movements within her. She'd never been more sure of anything in her life. _

_But she had to admit_, _seven months in, she was growing a little sick of being pregnant._

"_You okay back there?"_

_She caught a teasing eye roll from Sandra, next to her in the backseat. Their father had been nothing but supportive of her pregnancy, and Laura appreciated it, she truly did…but his constant hovering had become a private joke among her sisters._

"_I'm fine, Dad," she called up to the front seat, where her father was behind the wheel. "Just feeling a little…_big _today."_

_Cheryl leaned around the front passenger seat. "And you still have two months to go," she teased. "Just think how huge you'll be by then."_

_Laura shuddered. "Don't remind me."_

_Cheryl stretched out her hand, her fingertips just reaching Laura's expanded stomach. "Is he kicking today?"_

"_She," Sandra corrected. "It's definitely a girl."_

_Laura's father winked at her in the rearview mirror. Cheryl and Sandra had been waging this particular battle since the night she'd three-way called them from her bathroom, her positive pregnancy test still clutched in her shaking fingers, her smile so wide they could hear it in her voice._

_She rested a hand on her belly. "Sleeping, I think," she answered, diplomatically sidestepping the argument. _

_Cheryl's fingers rubbed light circles. "Come on, baby," she coaxed. "Kick for your favorite aunt."_

"_Excuse me?" Sandra demanded. "Who made Laura that soup that was the only thing she could keep down for the first three months? Who took her to her first doctor's appointment?"_

"_That was only because Dad wouldn't let me skip my chem test," Cheryl complained. _

_"Any more trouble out of you two, and I'm only buying Laura ice cream," their father teased._

…_and then everything disappeared, melted into the harsh groans of crunching metal and the shrill cry of shattering glass, as the world contracted into one bright wave of agony, burning through her, leaving only ash in its wake-_

* * *

She gasped aloud.

"Laura? You okay?"

Bill's voice, slow and sleepy, close to her ear.

Even without opening her eyes, she knew the worn softness of Bill's sheets, knew his familiar warmth and weight in the bed.

She'd sat with the kids last night, she recalled, trying to focus through the sounds of screams and desperate gasps, of shrieking sirens that went on and on.

She'd stayed over for the first time, she remembered. Bill had taken her hand and led her upstairs, and afterwards, she'd fallen asleep in his bed, wrapped up in his arms, like she belonged there. She'd felt so safe...

But she couldn't reach that feeling now, not with the shadow of remembered pain still burning through her nerves, with the echoes of the impact still ripping into her center.

She took a deep breath in through her nose, out through her mouth, trying to ease the panic gripping her throat, the queasy pounding of her heart. Her body shuddered with hot chills, raising a cold sweat on every inch of her skin.

Bill's thick arms tightened around her waist, pulling her closer. It should have helped.

_But she was trapped, she couldn't escape, and the agony went on and on_-

Her chest constricted against the heat of his body, her breaths turning ragged and shallow.

She'd dreamed of the accident too many times to count. But this was the first time it had happened in front of Bill…the first time she had let her guard down to allow it to happen in front of anyone.

Bill was still half-asleep, his face pressed into her hair. His hands wandered her lazily, sliding up under her shirt (his shirt) smoothing half-circles against her skin. But it was like he was trying to reach her through glass; all Laura could feel was melting steel, thick smoke choking her lungs, filling them with the stench of an obscene burning that she knew would haunt her forever…

Breathe, she told herself. Breathe…

And then his hands dipped lower, and his palm brushed the scar below her navel–

Laura jerked away from him, his touch suddenly broken glass in an open wound.

"Laura?"

It wasn't his fault. He didn't know-how could he? He probably thought that scar was the shadow of something old, something meaningless-a childhood operation, maybe, so far removed from the present that it had never occurred to her to mention it.

But to Laura, the pink zigzag across her skin didn't just mark the place where she had been sewn back together. It was the place where everything had been torn apart, the dividing line between past and present, between safety and horror, between three distinctive laughs and three silent graves.

It was a memorial to the child she'd almost had, a constant reminder of the children she never would.

Bill sat up in bed. His hair was rumpled from sleep, and Laura's heart ached at the way it made him look suddenly young, vulnerable. His brow furrowed as he fumbled on his night table for his glasses, his eyes still on her; waiting, she knew, for her to fill in the gaps, to explain what had made her pull away from him and out of his bed like he was carrying a deadly plague.

Instead, she turned away, hunting on the floor for her clothes, for his clothes, anything she could pull on. (She was just barely conscious of Zak and Lee somewhere down the hall, their presence all that stopped her from running out the door wearing only Bill's shirt.)

She should stay, she knew, she should say something–but there was too much she hadn't said, and the explanation would take too long, be too hard, too painful…

She'd meant to tell him about the accident. Of course she had. But when was she supposed to share something like that, exactly? On their first date, should she have told him about seeing the light leave her little sisters' eyes? When he'd invited her to have dinner with his children, should she have described the blood soaking the backseat?

It had been so much easier to keep putting it off.

She finally located her pants, buried halfway under the bed.

When he finally spoke, his concern hurt...but it was the quiet disappointment, that he had to ask at all, that cut her. "What's wrong?"

He deserved better, and it didn't even slow her down.

"I have to go," she managed, fingers still fumbling on the button of her jeans. "I'll call you later, okay?"

Even as the words were coming out of her mouth, she knew they were a lie.


	21. The Sign

**Chapter 21: The Sign**

* * *

He'd seen this coming, and he'd let it happen anyway.

"But _why_ isn't Laura coming to dinner?"

"She's working on her new book," Bill told Lee for the third time in an hour.

Lee frowned, like he knew Bill was holding back something, and he didn't appreciate wasting his time digging for it.

It reminded Bill of his father, and it irritated him.

"But why-" Lee began.

"Take your brother outside, will you?" Bill interrupted. "It's a beautiful day. Go play in it."

Lee's crossed arms did not improve Bill's temperament. "But Dad-"

"_Now_, Lee."

Lee didn't move.

Maybe it shouldn't have surprised Bill that his son had apparently forgotten the rules.

He'd abandoned enough of his own, lately.

Bill didn't get involved with cranky, noise-phobic writers. He didn't date women too brittle for broken windows and furry dogs. He didn't date the woman next door, period. He didn't stare out of windows wondering what she was doing, he didn't time his morning routine so he could smile at her when she stumbled blearily into her kitchen for coffee, he didn't let his mind wander from blueprints to ridiculous fantasies about lazy Sundays and crossword puzzles in bed. He didn't get attached to someone he could so easily lose. Not anymore.

And he certainly didn't let Zak and Lee get attached.

Ten days ago, Bill had fallen asleep next to Laura, her head pillowed on his chest, her legs curled around his, that glorious scent of jasmine and freesia settling into his bedroom, changing it, making it into a space they shared, a room that wasn't just his anymore, but theirs.

In the morning, when he'd woken up after a full night with a woman for the first time since his divorce, he'd broken the most important rule of all: he'd imagined a future.

_They'd sneak down to the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee before the kids woke up. Zak and Lee would be surprised to see her there, but they'd be happy, too. Maybe they'd all make pancakes together, the four of them, have breakfast together...like a family. _

And then Laura had woken up, and her thoughts hadn't been nearly so pleasant.

If she'd said she was worried they were moving too fast, if she'd wanted to leave before Zak and Lee saw her there, he'd have understood. He'd have kissed her goodbye (for the morning, for the moment), he'd have told her he'd see her for their usual dinner on Wednesday, and he'd have watched her creep down the stairs and across the driveway, his shirt on her back a promise of days and nights and conversations to come.

Instead, she'd bolted out of his bed, barely pausing to dress before running from his home like it was on fire, and his favorite faded blue flannel became another thing he hadn't realized he'd come to depend on until it was gone.

He hadn't seen her since.

"Can we call Laura later? I want to tell her about my new murder idea."

"Take your brother outside," Bill managed.

"But-"

"_Now_, Leeland."

Even Lee didn't dare argue with him when he used that tone. With a final dark glare for his father and a resentful "C'mom, Zak," for his brother, Lee headed for the door, muttering under his breath, just quietly enough that Bill couldn't quite make out what he was saying. The door slammed behind him.

She'd called. Two days later, late Thursday morning, when he was at work, when, an unkind voice in his mind whispered, she _knew_ he'd be at work.

He'd picked up anyway.

* * *

_"Bill," she said, the surprise in her voice an unpleasant confirmation. A shiver passed through him, despite the muggy air, the hot Qualai sun beating down on his shoulders. "I'm glad I could reach you."_

_It was a lie, and they both knew it. _

_"I want...I need to explain about the other day." She paused. He could tell she was choosing her words with careful precision, and it stung. "That night was...lovely. But, in the morning-"_

_But in the morning it was too real, but in the morning she'd known she'd made a mistake, but in the morning she hadn't been able to wait before she got away from him. _

_He knew it already, and he couldn't bear to hear it in Laura's voice. _

_"You don't have to explain anything," he interrupted. "I understand."_

_She was silent, and all Bill could think about was Carolanne's hasty scrawl, her clothes missing from their closet, the weeks he'd spent explaining to Lee, over and over, that his mother wasn't coming back. _

_"I have to go up to Caprica City," she said at last. "I'm not sure when I'll be back."_

_His fingers gripped the phone tighter, but his voice was steady. "Have a safe trip."_

_He hadn't waited to hear her say goodbye._

* * *

The door creaked open, and Bill prayed to gods he'd never believed in to give him the patience and fortitude to survive his oldest child.

"Lee-"

"Dad, why is there a 'For Sale' sign in Laura's yard?"

Bill closed his eyes.

He'd seen this coming, and he'd let it happen anyway.


	22. The Room

**Chapter 22: The Room**

* * *

She hadn't left this room in days.

Until the words were coming out of her mouth, Laura hadn't had any intention of coming to Caprica City. She'd thought that once she mustered up the courage to call Bill, to explain what had happened (that week she hadn't called, that morning she'd run away, that day six years ago when everything had changed), life would go back to normal. Better than normal, she'd tried to convince herself, before she finally picked up the phone. She cared about Bill, cared about Zak and Lee; whatever their future held, it was time she was honest. They deserved that. _She _deserved that: to be with people who knew who she was, people she didn't have to hide anything from.

But the moment Bill had hung up the phone, when she'd looked out of her office window and seen Lee chasing a barking Viper around Bill's backyard, she'd known she couldn't stay in Qualai. Not for another moment.

She liked to think she'd left childish naiveté behind long ago; in her mother's hospital room, maybe, or by her sisters' gravesides, when the pink dress Sandra had picked out to wear to Carolyn's high school graduation she wore into her coffin instead. Laura did not hope. Not anymore.

But until Bill had decided not to forgive her, she hadn't realized that it had never occurred to her that he might not.

_You don't have to explain_, he'd said, his clipped tone clearly done with the conversation, done with excuses, done with her. _I understand. _

He didn't understand, of course…or at least, he didn't understand _her_. He couldn't possibly know what had driven her out of his bed that morning, panic pounding in her chest, blurring her vision. How could he? He couldn't possibly understand the hours it had taken her to make her lungs remember how to work again, the days it had taken her to finally begin to think about how to move forward.

But by then, it was too late.

She hadn't been stupid enough to believe that he loved her, she told herself, as she grabbed clothes off hangers with shaking hands and threw them at her suitcase. Not quite. Not exactly. But she'd believed that he cared about her, that what they had between them had mattered to him….and clearly, she'd been wrong.

She'd been wrong about everything.

She'd assumed that she and Bill were the same: cautious, wary of giving away too much, of trusting the ground beneath them to stay solid.

But maybe there were other reasons that Bill never talked about their future.

Maybe she wasn't anything special to him after all. Maybe Zak and Lee met a new girlfriend every six months. Maybe she'd always been temporary…in all of their lives.

And maybe that night had been a mistake for him, too.

She hadn't paused to plan, or to call ahead, or to make reservations; all she could think about was being out of Qualai before Bill's truck sputtered into the driveway next door. She usually hated the long drive to Caprica City, but that day, it was a relief: it kept her mind firmly in the present, on speed limits and exit numbers and her half-empty tank. She drove for hours, her knuckles white on the wheel, not even pausing for the hot greasy fries that were her traditional road-trip guilty pleasure, or a cup of bitter gas station coffee to keep her alert. If she stopped, even for a moment, if she permitted her mind to wander...

She could feel the grief building up against the edges of her sharp focus, blurring into flashes of Lee's laughter, Zak's chubby fingers clutching hers, Bill's lips against her neck, his deep voice close to her ear, just as she drifted off to sleep…

She didn't remember pulling up to her usual hotel, checking in, staggering up to her room. She didn't remember kicking off her shoes and collapsing into bed, her leather jacket stiff against her shoulders, or pulling the thick white comforter over her head and falling asleep with her clothes still on, her stomach aching from a day's missed meals, her unopened suitcase on the bed beside her.

But she remembered waking up in the morning: the sunlight streaming through unfamiliar windows, the muffled quiet in the air, the strange smell of detergent on sheets too crisp to be hers…

Her mother used to say that everything always looked better in the morning.

She'd been wrong.

Yesterday, she'd told herself that she'd been mistaken about Bill all along, about who he was, what they had been. That morning, alone in a sterile hotel room, as she'd been so many times before, finally out of distractions, out of places to run, a different theory hammered against her rib cage, pounded against her temples.

Maybe Bill didn't love her. But maybe…maybe he could have.

Maybe, if she'd stayed that morning, if she'd been brave enough to tell the truth...

Underneath the covers, her tears dampening this pillow that wasn't hers, her fingertips digging into the starched edges, she let herself imagine it: _she told him about the accident, even if it was hard, even if it hurt, even if she cried in front of someone else for the first time in six years. She didn't pretend to be fine now. She didn't say "but that was all a long time ago." She didn't put any kind of good face on the months she'd spent wishing she'd died, too. She didn't try to downplay the magnitude of the loss, the birthdays and anniversaries that made her ache every year, the memories that still pulled the floor out from under her. _

_She didn't leave out the part about the baby._

_Maybe it was too much. Maybe it scared him off (_she_ scared him off) and that was their last night together, anyway. But maybe…maybe he took her hand, and maybe he listened. Maybe he held her while she talked, his hands cupping her trembling shoulders. Maybe, afterwards, he said he was glad she'd told him. Maybe he kissed her, very gently, and when he said how much it meant to him that she trusted him with that part of her past, maybe she believed him._

Maybe, now, she'd never know.

The tears came faster, and images of the life she'd lost flashed behind her closed eyelids, where she couldn't hide.

_Lee's first-grade homework, spread out across her kitchen table. Zak in her lap and a picture book in front of them, as she helped him sound out words. Soccer games and family barbeques and arguing over whose turn it was to walk Viper. Holding Bill's hand, above the table, at dinner—it was okay, the kids were used to it by now. They didn't even look up when she kissed their father goodbye in the mornings, or when he slipped up and said "I love you" in front of them for the first time._

She wanted to it not to matter to her. After what she'd already lost, nothing could touch her anymore-wasn't that what she always told herself? That the permanent emptiness in her heart was her shield, protecting her from any further pain? She had survived the loss of her mother, her father, her sisters, her child...she was immune to loss now, wasn't she? She was beyond any new grief. But huddled under that quilt, as hours, and then days, passed, the ache that refused to dull, in a place in her chest that she'd thought held only void and vacuum, told a different story.

It felt like she'd lost a family.

And this time, it was her fault.

Eventually, when her tears ran dry, she pulled her phone under the covers with her, called up Richard and asked him to do her a favor.

It was cowardly, and she knew it. (_Why stop now, _she thought bitterly.) But she couldn't bear the thought of driving back to Qualai alone, of walking into that house and knowing that once again, there was no one alive who cared that she'd come home.

Richard knew better than to ask questions. He promised that he'd take care of it for her, and she had no doubt that he would—or at least, that some overworked assistant would. Within days, her house was on the market, and there was a box of her things waiting for her at the front desk.

She should have felt relieved.

Instead, she felt empty.

Six years ago, she hadn't believed she could survive the loss. Now…

She wasn't sure she wanted to.


	23. The Visitor

**Chapter 23: The Visitor**

* * *

Bill Adama loved a clean, elegant blueprint: every line measured, precise, intentional, with not a square foot wasted or misused. But he loved a problem even more, a complication of mislaid plumbing lines or uneven ground, an obstacle that just dared him to think his way around it. It was those projects that he had the most affection for: the tricky ones, the ones that stumped him, the ones that he once despaired of ever finishing.

He tried to remember that feeling now, the elation of a hard-won victory, as he rubbed at his lower back, aching from too many hours bent over his desk, trying to make the remodel of the Agathons' kitchen turn out right.

With Lee out of school for the summer, Bill had rearranged his schedule so that he worked from home most afternoons. Dee-bless her ever-helpful soul; what he would do when she went off to college next year, Bill didn't even want to think about-knocked on his door at a quarter to seven, and Bill leaped into his truck. His mornings passed in a rush of client meetings and on-site consultations, business decisions to be made with Saul, invoices to be filed and bills to be paid and too many phone calls to be returned. He came back to send Dee home just in time to argue with Zak about going down for his nap-then there was dinner to make, and the kids' baths to manage, and bedtimes to enforce...and, finally, when Zak and Lee were asleep, and the dishes were done, and the house was put back into something that if not quite order, at least didn't make him want to weep from the chaos of it all...he was faced with all the work he hadn't gotten done from the morning.

In the fall, Lee would be in first grade, and Zak would be starting kindergarten. Bill expected that the challenges of having two children in school would soon leave him desperately nostalgic for the comparative charms of summer vacation...but just now, he had to admit, having his children reliably occupied eight hours a day, five days a week, sounded like bliss.

He might as well give up on the problem for now, Bill told himself-he had the kids to feed, Viper to walk. Maybe the answer to expanded cabinet space would come to him while he was stirring noodles...

He heard the low thrum of an engine, just outside his study, and he looked up from his blueprints, startled. That wasn't somebody driving by, he knew. That sound…that sound was too close for the car to be anywhere but next door.

His stomach lurched. The last thing he needed, the very last thing, was for her to come back now. At least when Carolanne left, she'd had the decency to leave for good, and not turn up weeks later, when he was finally getting things back to normal...

He moved to the clear-glass door of his study, the one that opened out onto the yard. He had no intention of going outside, he told himself, and he certainly had no need to speak to her. If Laura had come back, that was her own business, and if she hadn't…if she was only here to pack up, to sign some papers—well, that was none of his concern, either. But he waited, anyway, watching from the safety of his study, as the car-not Laura's, he realized, it was too new and shiny for that-came to a stop in her driveway, a woman behind the wheel.

It wasn't Laura.

Somehow, that only irritated him more.

He watched, anyway, as a stranger in a sharp pantsuit and towering heels slipped out of the gleaming little car and climbed the steps to Laura's porch.

"Laura, open the godsdamn door," she yelled, rapping her knuckles impatiently against the door, her voice loud enough to cut the late-afternoon stillness. "I've been driving for four hours, I've had three cups of coffee, and if you don't let me in this minute, I will not be responsible for my actions."

In all the time Bill had lived next door, he'd never seen Laura receive a single visitor—except for that man she'd kissed goodbye, on that one day that he'd never asked her about, that one day that he'd told himself didn't mean anything.

He wondered if she was with him now: in some swanky Caprica City restaurant, maybe, her fingers twined with his, making him laugh with stories about her latest chapter?

(He would not have thought it possible that he could still feel the absence of those stupid little updates. He didn't even _like_ mysteries, and here he was, hung up on who left the body at the bar. Eventually, he figured, she'd publish the damn thing. He wouldn't buy it for himself, of course...but Lee would want to read it. He wondered how long he'd be able to hold out until caved and read it, too, to finally find out how the frakkin' thing ended...and, maybe, he'd finally find out the name of that man from her porch; on the first page, in a tender dedication that would always sting.)

The stranger had taken out her phone, and was now continuing her tirade while holding down the doorbell with her thumb. "Laura, you are my oldest friend in all the worlds, but if you think that'll stop me from—"

Bill tried to remember if Laura had ever mentioned a friend by name, and couldn't. He tried to think of anyone in her life who knew her well enough to speak to her in a tone of such clear familiarity, that characteristic blend of fondness and aggravation…and couldn't. Did Laura have any sisters? He didn't know, and it bothered him more than it should have. He'd known Carolanne's entire life story in under a week…how could he still know so little about a woman who'd shared his bed, cared for his children?

But then, maybe Laura had never planned on them being a permanent presence in each other's lives, anyway. Maybe she'd known all along that there wasn't any point in sharing details, becoming further entangled.

"Laura, I swear to gods—"

If circumstances had been different, Bill might have felt himself compelled to inform this woman that Laura wasn't home, offer to give her a message…or possibly weigh the relative dangers of letting a woman who seemed just a tad unhinged but might be Laura's oldest friend in all the worlds use his bathroom. But as it was, he was honor-bound to do no such thing; he could stand here and watch this thing unfold like one of those daytime melodramas his grandmother had loved…

And then she turned, and met his eyes.

_Frak._ He tried to turn away, busy himself with a book, but it was too late: she'd seen him, and she'd seen him see her.

She waved—with a suspicious level of enthusiasm, Bill thought.

This was what came of getting involved with the neighbors.

He cracked open the door, just a hair.

"Can I help you?" he asked, politely, fervently hoping that the answer was no.

Her eyes widened. "You must be Bill!" she called.

To his horror, she crossed the thin strip of asphalt separating his yard from Laura's, her cherry-red lips curving in a delighted smile.

"I'm Marcie," she said, holding out her hand for his. "Laura and I were roommates freshman year, a million years ago. Once you throw up Jell-O shots with someone, you're kind of bonded for life, you know?"

After this, Bill promised himself, he was never going to speak to another neighbor so long as he lived.

"It's Bill Adama, right?" Marcie asked, still grasping his hand. "The cute architect next door?"

"Did—" Bill stopped himself. He was _not_ going to ask if Laura had said that. He was a grown man, a professional, _a business owner_—not some attention-hungry twelve-year-old.

He crossed his arms. "I'm Bill Adama, yes," he said instead.

Marcie appeared immune to his discomfort. "It's so good to meet you," she beamed.

He cleared his throat. "Laura isn't home. I'm not sure when—" (_If_, he mentally amended) "—she'll be back, but I'd be glad to tell her you stopped by."

Marcie shrugged. "I'll track her down eventually. I was in the area taking a deposition, so I figured I'd try to catch her." She rolled her eyes. "You know Laura. I love her to pieces, but how hard is it to pick up the phone and say, 'I can't talk right now, I'm writing, but I thought I'd take two seconds to let my oldest friend in the universe know I'm still alive?'"

If Laura was avoiding this woman's calls—and Bill didn't blame her—at least that explained why she still thought they were together. Well, if Laura didn't see fit to update her friends on her dating life—or even her current address, apparently—Bill certainly wasn't going to do it for her.

He didn't answer.

Marcie sighed. "I know," she said, as though his silence had been some form of commentary. "I hover. It was six years ago. But if you'd known her when it happened—my gods, every time I spoke to her, I was afraid it'd be the last time. "

She brightened. "But she's so much better now. You're living proof of that, aren't you? When she told me you had kids…" Marcie lowered her voice. "After it happened, when she wouldn't even _think_ about going back to teaching—"

The shrill pitch of her phone interrupted her. Marcie rolled her eyes. "Work," she sighed. She picked up, started talking about deadlines, running late, on her way-

Bill wasn't listening. When _what_ had happened? What was Marcie talking about? And what would his having kids have to do with anything?

In the weeks since her abrupt departure, he'd decided that he hadn't meant anything to Laura, that he'd been just a filler in her life, somebody to relieve the small-town boredom until she'd moved on to better things. But Marcie didn't seem to think so. Marcie acted like...

And what had happened six years ago?

But the questions stuck in his throat, and he didn't know how to ask what he was supposed to already know.

He let Marcie hug him goodbye, heard himself promise to let Laura know she come by. (What else was there to do?) He watched her drive away, waving merrily out the window at somebody she didn't realize she was never going to see again, until her car disappeared into the distance.

Laura had stopped teaching after her first book was published, to write full-time...hadn't she? Had she ever said that, or was that just another thing he'd assumed?

He crept closer to the dividing line between their properties, staring at Laura's empty house like her closed windows and darkened lights had something to tell him.

_She's so much better now. _

Better than _what_?

Laura had mentioned an accident, once, that night in his kitchen when she'd first asked him to dinner. She was the only survivor, she'd said. He'd wondered about the details, of course, particularly as he got to know her better…but she'd never spoken of it again, and he hadn't wanted to pry. She'd tell him when she was ready, he'd thought.

Except she never had.

He remembered the vacant look in her green eyes, the tremor in her hands, even hours after their minor crash. At the time, they still been almost strangers….but even he had known that this wasn't normal for her. Laura Roslin was a woman who kept her feelings to herself.

Should he have pushed her? If he'd asked, would she have told him the truth? Would it have made a difference?

But Laura's house was silent.

It didn't matter anymore, Bill told himself. Laura had made it clear that she didn't want to be a part of his life, and he was doing just fine-better than fine, in fact. He had his kids, and his business, and his house; he didn't need any more than that.

He turned away. Zak and Lee would probably be looking for him, he knew. That was what mattered, not some ramblings from a stranger.

Laura had moved on. Whatever he knew, or didn't know...it was time he moved on, too.


	24. The Call, Part II

**Chapter 24: The Call, Part II**

* * *

_The heavy barrel of the gun fell into place between his shoulder blades, but it was the cold click of the bullet slipping into the chamber that took him by surprise. _

_Somehow, he'd always thought she was different. _

_"Sorry about this, Joe," Owen said from behind him. He could picture her black-lacquered nails digging into the grip, her crimson lips pursed in something almost like regret. "But you know how it is-"_

* * *

The chirping of her phone startled her out of her concentration, and Laura cursed aloud. She'd almost had it...

There was a point in every book, Laura had found, when she regretted ever starting in the first place. The words fit together clumsily, awkward in her head but worse on the page. The characters refused to follow the plot, didn't relate to each other the way she'd designed them to, didn't belong together at all. The climax she'd been carefully leading up to for the past twenty chapters suddenly didn't seem worth all the flashbacks and reversals and intricately woven backstory it had taken to get there.

Sometimes, it was a sign that she'd been working too hard: too many hours staring at the screen, too many late nights, too many days since she'd seen another human. A good night's sleep, a little vacation from her work, and suddenly the cure for her floundering draft was so clear she couldn't believe she hadn't seen it before.

Sometimes it was a symptom of a manuscript that really was in trouble: a plot too flimsy to support a novel, a narrative technique too ambitious for its subject material, a central conflict that just wasn't as interesting fifty pages in as it had been unformed in her head.

There was nothing to do, Laura had long ago decided, but to keep plugging away at it, hoping that she wasn't steering a sinking ship-but neither situation was made better by being interrupted every ten minutes.

_Tory Foster_, she saw, lit up on the tiny screen. Laura rolled her eyes. She knew what Tory wanted: an update on when her new novel would be finished, so she could start putting her publicity machine in motion. Well, Laura didn't know when-or today, _if_-her book was going to be finished, and she had no intention of letting Tory bully her about it.

The ringing finally quieted, and Laura leaned back in her chair, twirling a pen embossed with _Caprica City Grand Hotel_ between her fingers. She'd been meaning to get her own place, was planning to get her own place...but there was no rush, was there? She had a beautiful suite here, a set of cozy, immaculate rooms-what more did she need? She had a desk for her computer, a gorgeous view of the city (and she was a city girl, after all; she never should have tried to leave); a big cushy bed to collapse into at the end of the night. She had one of the best restaurants in the city just downstairs, and literally hundreds of delivery menus to choose from. She didn't have to grocery shop or house clean or do her own laundry. Maybe she'd live here permanently; it would give her so much more time for her writing.

Maybe it was time Laura gave up on trying to make herself a home. That part of her life was over. It was time she accepted it.

When she'd moved to Qualai, left her furniture and photographs in storage, she'd known she was running away, making a vain stab at leaving her past behind. She'd known her memories would chase her wherever she went, that her nightmares would be with her as long as she lived. But part of her had hoped that in new surroundings, where every street and grocery store didn't hold an echo of weekend drives with her mother, late-night ice cream runs with her sisters, the weight on her chest would lessen, just a little.

And it had. That first year had hurt, as she tried to put her parents and her sisters away, lived in a town they'd never visited, slept in a house without her parents' wedding pictures, Sandra's recipes, Carolyn's jewelry. But it was easier, too, to let herself go numb, to make a life in which she woke up, and wrote, and slept, and tried not to have room for anything else.

And then she'd met Bill, and her hopes of a quiet little refuge were replaced by visions of a stubbly cheek beside hers on the pillow in the morning, a hand on her knee at dinner, a broad chest beneath her ear as she closed her eyes.

But that was behind her, now.

It was time to be done with foolish dreams.

* * *

_A drop of sweat snaked its way down Joe's spine. He had to keep her talking. If he could buy himself some time, distract her..._

_"Were you planning this all along?" His voice was bruised, like the jilted lover he was, and he hated it. But if it kept her busy, while he worked on how to get that gun-_

_Owen's voice whispered against the back of his neck. He shivered. _

_"Nothing's real, kid. Haven't you learned that by now?"_

* * *

The phone rang again.

Marcie, this time. Laura's stomach clenched. She'd been avoiding her friend for weeks, and she was fairly certain they both knew it. She just...couldn't talk to her right now. Not when she could still hear the echoes of their last conversation-_he's a good guy, I really like these kids, I think I could be happy here _ringing hollowly in her ears.

The last time they'd spoken, she'd been running out the door for Friday night pizza with the kids. She'd been so happy that day, so hopeful...

Marcie would understand, Laura told herself. She'd call her back eventually. When she was ready to face that conversation with distance, with calm. When she could explain what had happened without tears in her voice.

Whenever that would be.

* * *

_"I wish I had time to talk this through with you, Joe-Joe," Owen said, her voice silky smooth-so unlike the woman who'd cried into her drink that first night, wiped her smeared mascara with a crumpled cocktail napkin. "But unfortunately-for you-it's time for me to go."_

_There was a cold note in her voice that made him think that whatever she was about to do, she'd done it before. She was good, Joe realized, a pro..._

_Maybe she'd want to brag, just a little. _

_"You left the body," Joe guessed. "You killed Fisk. You wanted him found."_

_Owen laughed, and the sound chilled him. "You don't know anything, do you, babe?"_

* * *

The ringing startled her, and she reached for the phone without thinking.

_Richard. _

They hadn't spoken since she'd left Qualai, when she'd called him in an ill-disguised panic and asked him to get rid of her house for her. But he'd called a few times since then, left messages-and Laura knew what came next. Another client would be staying at her hotel...he'd ask if she wanted to grab a quick dinner with him after his meeting (downstairs, of course, in the restaurant; not up in her room, not yet). There'd be a glass of her favorite white wine, chilled, waiting on the table, and Richard would be just a little too well-dressed for a meeting with a client, wearing just a dab too much cologne. He wouldn't ask what had happened in Qualai, and she wouldn't mention his wife. There wouldn't be anything between them, in fact, that couldn't be attributed to a late business meeting, a dinner between old friends...except for the softness in Richard's eyes, the aching loneliness in the pit of her stomach, and the magnetic pull of a bad habit, like the way her fingers sometimes still itched for a cigarette, years after she'd sworn them off.

She shouldn't let it happen again. Richard was still married (to another woman _and_ to his job), still perennially unreliable, still perpetually self-involved. But if she saw him now...

He didn't have Bill's calloused fingers, his attentive blue eyes, the deep rumbling laugh she could feel inside her own chest. But he could make her pain ache a little less. He'd done it before.

Maybe...maybe that was the best she could hope for, now.

* * *

_Joe's eyes darted around the bar. Clean glasses, drying on the rack...chairs and tables, too far away to grab...a fire extinguisher, hung from the wall..._

_He needed more time. _

_"Why me?" He sounded downright pathetic, and he knew it. But then, Joe had always found wriggling out of certain death to be a particularly undignified business. _

_Owen sighed, like a mother whose four-year-old was being especially difficult about bedtime. "Joe-"_

* * *

The phone rang again, and Laura dropped her head onto her keyboard. She was never going to get any work done. It was Tory, she saw. But Tory rarely called twice in a row...

Maybe it would be easier to answer, Laura decided. Tory wouldn't want to ask her to dinner, or hear about her relationship failures. And maybe, if Laura was pointed enough about it, Tory could get the word out to Richard that she didn't want to be disturbed just now, and she could buy herself a few more weeks of peace.

"Yes?" she said, her tone deliberately brusque. "I'm writing, Tory, this really isn't a good time-"

"Ms. Roslin, thank the Gods," Tory interrupted. "I've been trying to get you all day."

Laura was not in the mood to be lectured by her publicist. "I still don't know when the book's going to be finished. So your promotion plans are just going to have to wait."

"That's not what I'm calling about." Tory's usually smooth, controlled voice sounded a touch unsure. "Do you remember that interview you gave a few months ago?"

She did, vaguely: two hours in a coffee shop being peppered with questions by a Caprica Times reporter in a pale suit, on her last trip to Caprica City.

She remembered telling Bill about it over dinner in her house in Qualai, laughing about all of Aaron Doral's questions, Bill's hand warm on top of hers, and her stomach tightened.

She wondered how long it would take before a thousand tiny things stopped reminding her of him, until the name of some journalist she'd met once didn't make her ache.

She cleared her throat. "Why?"

Tory was a notoriously quick and efficient speaker; her meetings never dragged, and her phone calls were almost always brief. Laura had never known her to have this much trouble getting to the point.

"Well, the article came out this morning.."

Laura rubbed her temples. She didn't have time for this...whatever this turned out to be. "Did he not like the book, or something?"

Tory hesitated. "Laura...you need to read it."


	25. The Article

**Chapter 25: The Article**

* * *

There were many days when Bill thought that his children were the best thing that had ever happened to him.

Today had not been one of those days.

"Daddy, can I have a Zeus bar?"

"No," Bill said wearily, piloting their overloaded shopping cart into the line behind the cash register and praying that Zak gave up quietly.

No such luck.

"But you let Lee have one last time," Zak whined, tugging on his sleeve.

"No, we _split_ one," Lee, always the soul of precision, corrected.

It had been like this all day. Zak wouldn't go down for his nap and was so overtired he was practically bouncing off the walls, Lee hadn't stopped talking since six in the morning...and Bill would have given a year of his life for a little peace and quiet. And now, in another moment, he knew, he'd have a meltdown on his hands.

Maybe he should have just bought the damn Zeus bar.

"Daddy-"

"_No_, Zak," Bill said automatically. "We're on our way home to make dinner."

Distantly, Bill heard the echoes of his own childhood, a thousand similar pleas, a thousand tired responses.

He'd become his mother.

Maybe he'd call her later, Bill decided, unloading his cart onto the counter. At least someone would get a good laugh out of this...

"Dad!" Lee's yelp would have been appropriate if he'd suddenly burst into flames. "It's _Laura_!"

Bill's shoulders stiffened, his heart pounding queasily in his throat. After all this time, _now? _In a grocery store, when he hadn't showered off the morning's dirt and dust, and his children were on the verge of a public tantrum?

Lee shoved a magazine under his nose. "Look!"

There she was, on the cover of the Caprica Times: a big black-and-white shot, all face, with _Laura Roslin: The Woman Behind The Murders_ printed underneath.

Lee shook the magazine, like he thought Bill wasn't paying attention.

As though Bill could possibly look away.

Half her face was in shadow, the sepia tones lending a gravity to her quiet expression, the slight furrow of her brow. Her lips barely curled upwards at the corners, only hinting at a smile, and it confused him. It wasn't her public smile, the one on her book jackets, where her smile was just a little brighter than it was in life, a little too polished, missing the sardonic quirk that he loved. She looked like she'd been caught unaware somehow, like she'd forgotten the camera was there. He'd seen this look on her face before, more than once, when he'd think that they were talking, and then suddenly, her eyes would be clouded, staring off into space, her thoughts anywhere but with him. It was a private expression, almost intimate, and he wondered if she'd approved this picture.

He wondered if there was another picture of her inside.

"I see it," he muttered.

Lee's fingers eager wrinkled the paper. "Can we buy it?"

_No_, Bill wanted to say. He did not want that magazine in his house. Not the home where they'd shared pizza and clandestine kisses, where he'd fallen asleep thinking of her, where he'd let himself imagine that they could one day make a life.

"Put it back," he grunted.

Lee squared his little shoulders, his fists tightening at his sides. "I. Need. This."

His son was not going to back down, and Bill knew it.

"If Lee gets a magazine, I get a Zeus bar," Zak whined, in a voice loud enough to carry back to the dairy aisle.

Bill took the magazine from Lee. The Woman Behind The Murders-how tacky. He hoped she thought so, too.

He hoped, wherever she was, that she was cringing every time she saw it.

"Dad?"

Silently, Bill dropped the Times and the Zeus bar with the rest of the groceries. Lee sighed in relief, Zak cheered, and Bill ignored the judgmental eye of the teenage cashier.

Let Lee read it. Let Lee carry it around. Let Lee build a shrine for it.

Bill didn't care.

* * *

But it would be much easier not to care if Lee didn't have to read the damn thing so _loudly_.

"Dad, what does this word mean?"

It was important to encourage Lee in his reading, his kindergarten teacher had told Bill. Most almost-seven-year-olds were still working their way through their first thin chapter books, and Lee was already attempting grown-up novels. It was crucial to his development that he receive cheerful, willing help whenever he needed it, his teacher had said. They didn't want him getting frustrated or discouraged.

But did he have to be encouraged while Bill was trying to put dinner on the table?

Bill peered over his shoulder. "'Transcendent,'" he read. "It means..."

Inside, the picture was in color. Laura was standing in front of a window, her face in profile, the light softening her features, limning the dark red of her hair with a gentle golden glow. _Taken in Roslin's suite at the Caprica City Grand Hotel_, the caption read. So that's where she was living now...in a hotel?

"Dad?" Lee prompted, his foot bouncing impatiently.

Bill sighed. "It means he liked the book, Lee."

Across the room, Zak shrieked in happiness; he was feeding Viper the rest of his Zeus bar, Bill saw. Because that's what he needed: tiny pieces of peanut butter-stained wrapper all over the floor.

This day was never going to be over.

"Dad, what does this word mean?"

"'Cathartic,'" Bill pronounced.

Lee waited.

"He thought it made her feel better to write it," Bill translated.

_Why_, Bill might have asked...if he still cared why Laura did things. But he was past that now, done with parsing her motives, struggling with her reasoning.

He had things to do, kids to feed.

"Dad-" Lee began. But Bill, busy draining his noodles into a colander in the sink, couldn't hear him.

"It's time to put that away for dinner," he informed Lee, wiping his forehead on his sleeve. "Tell your brother-"

Lee wasn't listening. "Dad, what's a drunk driver?"

Bill paused. "Let me see that a minute."

He had to know what his son was reading, after all, make sure it was age-appropriate-

There it was, in black and white, everything he'd ever wanted to know, and had been too polite, too considerate, too cowardly, to ask.

And he knew now he hadn't bought the magazine for Lee.

_Drunk driver...two years after her mother's death from cancer...head-on collision...father and one sister killed instantly, one sister pronounced brain dead at the hospital...Roslin, as the only living relative, made the choice to take her off life support..._

It was all coming together for him now: the dedications in her books-to Edward, Judith, Carolyn, and Sandra, whose names she never uttered out loud...the tremor in her voice when she spoke of her childhood in that lake house...the pictures missing from her home, the visitors who never came...

He imagined losing his family in one night, pictured standing there, all alone, making the decision to pull a seventeen-year-old's life support, and he could feel tears pricking at his eyes.

Why hadn't she told him? Had she thought he wouldn't understand, that he couldn't be trusted with that part of herself?

Unless...maybe she'd tried.

He'd yelled at her, he remembered suddenly, the memory hitting him like a blow. Their minor little accident, and she'd been so afraid, and he'd been so angry...

Something cold shivered deep in his gut, and he wished he hadn't hung up on her, that last time they'd spoken.

_Some of these details have been written about before. But what hasn't been public knowledge, until now, is that Roslin was in the car, too...and that her injuries were not so minor as have been assumed. Roslin underwent several emergency surgeries immediately following the accident, doctors only just managing to save her life. But there was another loss she suffered that night..._

The first time he read the words, he blinked, shook his head a little. No. No, he would have known...

But when he opened his eyes, the words were still there.

_At the time of the accident, Roslin had been seven months pregnant. _

He flashed to the delicate scar crisscrossing her abdomen, the look in her eyes when Zak hugged her that first time...and he knew it wasn't a lie, and it wasn't a mistake.

His fingers dug into the paper until the page ripped.

"Dad!"

"I'll buy you another one," Bill replied numbly.

How could she have gone on, after that kind of loss? How could she have gotten out of bed, written novels, laughed?

He thought about the hesitation on her face when she'd asked him to dinner, the quirk of her lips when she smiled, and was humbled.

He could not have had her strength.

"Dad?"

"In a minute," he mumbled.

The noodles would soon be a cold, sticky mess. The vegetables were probably burning. He didn't care.

_Months of recovery...multiple surgeries...a beloved teacher, who couldn't bear to be around children...a first novel, written in hospitals and recovery rooms, alone in an apartment she wouldn't allow even her closest friends to visit..._

He found the date in the article, did the math. Six years ago.

Her child would be exactly Lee's age now.

The pieces were clicking into place now, and with all his heart, he wished, for her sake, that he was wrong.

The fear in her eyes when he told her that he was bringing Zak and Lee into her house. The awkwardness as they fixed the window, as she struggled to make conversation with Lee. Her long hesitation, that first time he'd ask her to come to dinner with the kids...

He'd been afraid his children would get hurt.

It had never occurred to him that his children might hurt her.

With a sinking feeling in his stomach, he remembered all those phone calls he'd spent prattling on about Zak and Lee, _complaining_ about Zak and Lee. What must she think of him? The way he'd pushed her come to family dinners-why hadn't he ever asked her if that was what she wanted? He pictured the doubt in her eyes when he'd asked her to stay the night, her panic when she'd woken up in his house, surrounded by his family...

No wonder she'd run away from him.

Maybe he really hadn't learned anything since Carolanne, after all.

He thought about that house next door, sitting empty for months, and his heart twisted.

He thought about the way she curled into herself when she slept, her knees close to her chest, her fingers gripping her pillow.

He thought about a young teacher, her face flushed with happiness, laughing with her sisters, her hands cupping her growing belly.

He thought about the steel in the eyes of a woman who'd survived the loss of everyone she'd ever loved.

He thought about Laura in a lonely hotel room, because he'd driven her away from the home she'd tried to make for herself.

It was too late for them. He would be foolish to hope otherwise.

But maybe...maybe it wasn't too late for her.


	26. The Signing

**Chapter 26: The Signing**

* * *

From the moment Laura walked into Pythia's Books and saw the crowd of people waiting to hear her read, she knew she shouldn't have come.

From the back of the room, she watched as their heads turned at the sound of the door opening, as the recognition on their faces at the sight of her melted into pity-and a raw, hungry curiosity.

That was how everyone looked at her, now.

_I didn't think she'd come_, she picked out among the whispers, as she made her way to the front of the room.

_Maybe it's not true-her publicist keeps saying "No comment."_

_If it weren't true, the Times would have had to retract it by now. _

_It must be awful, everybody talking about her like that..._

Laura ignored them, keeping her head up high as she crossed to the podium. She could have cancelled, she supposed. This reading had been booked for months, and the tickets had already been sold-but Pythia's would have had to been gracious about it; the big chain wouldn't want to be the only store not to stock the new Laura Roslin book. According to Tory, the new book would probably make the top ten charts in its first week. Apparently tragedy in the life of the author perked up sales. If Laura would just do a few select interviews...

Laura wasn't even sure she cared to finish the book. What was the point? Before frakking Aaron Doral and that godsdamn article, she'd been a writer. She wrote books, and people bought them and read them and sometimes wanted to talk to her about them. Now, she was just a Tragic Victim, a sad, pathetic woman who wrote books to distract herself from her own loneliness and despair.

Her face had been on the Caprica City news every day this week-Breaking Updates on a story that was six years old-and nobody even mentioned her characters, her plot lines, her writing. No, they just read those dedications over and over, across a never-ending slideshow of personal pictures that somehow every slimehole TV producer in the Twelve Worlds had gotten their grubby fingers on: Laura at her college graduation, wearing her cap and gown; Laura at the beach with her mother, the year before she was diagnosed; Laura at the head of a classroom; Laura laughing with her sisters; Laura at her baby shower, bare hours before the accident, her smile straining her cheeks...

Maybe she'd sell her house and her car and leave Caprica, move off-world. A farm on Aerilon, maybe; she could buy ten acres of land and plant a garden and only speak to other humans twice a year. Or maybe she'd trade in for a little shack on the beach on Scorpia, where the ambrosia was strong and she only spoke thee words of the language...

But she wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of watching her cower now. She wasn't going to watch that story play: _poor sad Laura, so traumatized, she hasn't left her hotel room in days, is canceling all her public appearances..._

She'd committed to doing this reading, and she was going to do it. And if it was going to be the last reading she ever did, she was going to damn well make it a good one.

She stepped up to the microphone, and the whispers became a dull roar. Laura put on her smile, and opened her book, and the crowd went silent.

"Thank you for coming," she said, willing warmth into her expression, like she was glad they'd come, like she was glad she was there. "I'm going to start with my favorite scene in _Murder_ _at Daybreak_, when Maura finds Will's body..."

(It wasn't her favorite part, actually; that was a passage near the end, which had taken her nearly three frustrating days of rewrites to get right. But it also gave away the identity of the killer, which was decidedly _not_ the best way to market a mystery novel.)

"It started the way it always did, with a body," she began. "Except today, the corpse wasn't in Maura's head-it was next door."

At least the crowd had quieted. She glanced up as she read, the way she used to when she taught-making eye contact, seeing who was paying attention, who wasn't-and if her audience wished they were hearing about her past, instead of from her book, at least they were keeping it to themselves.

"How the architect had died was clear," Laura continued. "His head had been almost completely severed from his body, and judging by the jagged marks slicing into what was left of his neck, and the bloody saw left beside his still body, the identity of the murder weapon was equally obvious. What Maura didn't know-"

She turned the page, glanced up-and there, in the back row, was Bill Adama.

Heat rushed to her cheeks and she felt her hand rise, hover in front of her mouth. _What was he doing here?_

Her eyes found his. She could see her shock in the worry clouding his blue eyes. _Maybe I shouldn't have come_, she could read there, as clearly as if it were written on the page in front of her. There was no question that he'd read the article; Doral's words were etched in the grim lines of his face, the sympathetic set of his mouth.

He knew she was broken now, too.

Laura didn't believe in the gods, not anymore. But in the five days since her face on the Caprica Times had hit newsstands, she had prayed to anything in the universe to stop Bill from picking up that magazine and flipping to page sixty-one...and finding out what a lucky escape he had made. She thought of all her secrets, everything she'd tried to hide, laid out naked and bare in front of him, and felt sick. Her stomach lurched as she imagined his relief that Laura and her grief and her damage and her mess weren't in his life anymore...weren't in his children's lives. Maybe he'd called up Saul and Ellen and read the article aloud, told them that his ex was even crazier than he'd thought. Maybe he checked the 'For Sale' sign in her yard every day, waiting for it to turn to 'Sold'-impatient for the day when she and her whole unpleasant history would be gone for good. Maybe she'd become a story he told on first dates: the famous writer who'd slept with him the first night, and then lied to him for months.

She realized she'd stopped reading.

She caught her breath, forced her lips painfully upwards. "You'd think I'd know this book better, having written it," she joked, to polite laughter.

What Bill wanted, why he was here-she couldn't think about that now. She found her place, and she began to read.

She could feel Bill's eyes on her, his presence from the back of the room like a beacon, burning through her, all through the reading.

She didn't look back at him once.

* * *

The faces and names blurred together as she signed book after book, posed for photograph after photograph. She kept her eyes firmly on the person in front of her, on the pen in her hand, even as she felt Bill hovering in the back of the line, waiting for the room to empty out.

She couldn't imagine why he'd come.

She signed the last book slowly, _To Cally_ and handed it back with a bright smile. She and Bill both watched as the young woman smiled back and retreated from the room.

Laura wanted to run.

Bill approached her table slowly, like she was a snake he worried might strike at him without warning, and it burned. Had it been so horrible, what she'd done? She'd tried to be normal, that was all. She'd tried to be a person again.

She knew better now.

She got to her feet and began to gather her things. Whatever Bill wanted to say, he was going to have to say it fast.

He buried his hands in his pockets, the way he always did when he was uncomfortable. "I didn't mean to startle you."

She crossed her arms, her nails digging in, wrinkling the sleek material of her blazer. "Then what did you mean?"

"I was in the city on a consulting job," he said at last. "I saw that you were giving a reading-"

Laura didn't believe that for a second. But what did it matter anymore? The sooner she put this whole embarrassing episode behind her, the better.

She concentrated on settling her reading copy of _Daybreak_ into her bag, neatly, so the pages wouldn't wrinkle. "It was good to see you," she said. "I'd love to stay and catch up, but unfortunately, I have an appointment to get to."

If he could lie, why couldn't she?

She slipped the strap of her bag over her shoulder. "So if you'll excuse me-"

"I came to apologize."

Her throat tightened, and all she could think about was the remembered warmth of his fingers against her cheek, and that concise, emotionless description of her injuries, printed in stark black and white in front of him.

"If I'd known...what happened, I would never have pushed you with the boys the way I did."

Is that what he thought had happened? That he'd frightened her off with pizza dinners and a single night in his house?

He cleared his throat. Laura had never seen him look so uncomfortable. "And I wanted to tell you that you don't need to sell your house. We won't be bothering you again."

Of course not. Of course Bill Adama would want it perfectly clear that she wouldn't be having anything further to do with his children.

"I've already gotten an offer on the house," she said. She was suddenly so very tired. "I'll be out as soon as the paperwork clears and my things can be packed up."

A muscle in his jaw leaped, then stilled. "I see."

Was there someone else already, she wondered? Or was he just so afraid she'd come back and complicate his life again?

"I'm late," she reminded him.

He didn't move.

She couldn't bear another moment of this. Without another word, she turned her back on him and headed for the door.

"I hope you'll be happy, Laura."

She stifled the sob that rose in her throat. Happy. Was it stupid to still wonder if they could have been happy? To believe in a universe where she and Bill were back in Qualai, sharing a quiet cup of tea while the kids played in the backyard?

She held onto the fantasy for a moment, and then let it go, Bill and Zak and Lee's smiles dissipating before her eyes. "You, too, Bill."

She was almost out the door when he spoke.

"Can I ask you something?"

She paused. What could he possibly want to know-had she meant to keep it from him? Had she wanted to tell him? Was she sorry she hadn't?

"How does the book end?"

She couldn't prevent the snort of startled laughter from escaping her-even as it hurt.

She'd missed their talks more than she could have imagined.

"Joe tries to convince Owen to leave with him, but she betrays him," she answered without turning around. "Her partner shoots her rather than split the loot, so Joe shoots him, and he and Owen escape. Owen dies, and Joe uses the money to buy the bar."

"Shame," Bill said, sounding genuinely regretful. "I was rooting for them."

She turned and met his eyes. "I guess some people aren't meant to be together."

He nodded slowly. Was she mistaken, or was that pain in his eyes? "Maybe not."

She should go now, keep walking. There was nothing for her here but awkwardness, and regret, and too much time already wasted. He wouldn't follow her, she knew. He wouldn't make it harder.

But hadn't she spent months wishing she hadn't run? Hours, staring at the ceiling, wishing she could go back, be braver? And what did she have to lose, anyway? If it really was too late...would it matter?

"Unless...unless maybe I have the ending wrong." Her heart was pounding loud enough that she was sure he could hear it, in the stillness of the empty room. "Maybe Owen and Joe deserve a second chance, after all."

The stern cast of his face melted away into a smile that eased the lines on his face, crinkled the corners of his eyes. "I'd like that," he said. "As a reader, I mean."

He closed the gap between them, until he was close enough that she could feel the heat of his body, breathe in an almost forgotten scent of soap and sweat and hot summer mornings.

Maybe it wouldn't be any different this time around. Maybe she would always be too damaged, too frightened to let anyone close. Maybe she really should buy that farm on Aerilon.

But maybe she was tired of running.

Maybe she wanted to go home.

She swallowed on a dry throat. "Do you have time for a cup of coffee? Before you head back? I'd love to discuss the plot with someone who-"

And then his lips met hers, and it didn't matter that she didn't know the end of the sentence, anyway.


	27. The Apartment

_Apologies for the delay between updates-real life was a bitch, and so was this chapter. But it is the longest so far...am I forgiven?_

* * *

**Chapter 27: The Apartment**

* * *

It was a good thing Bill had left his dignity somewhere along the highway on the drive to Caprica City—when he'd almost turned around at a truck stop, maybe, and instead had kept going—or the ridiculous grin straining his face might have embarrassed him.

But the smile gracing Laura's features warmed him, and when she brushed her fingers, feather-light, against the back of his neck, his eyes drifted shut, and he forgot about his pride, and went back to kissing her, instead.

He never wanted to stop.

It occurred to him, faintly, that maybe he hadn't come to Caprica City driven by only the purest, most noble of intentions, after all. Maybe when he'd told himself that he was going to stay away from her, part of him had been praying that it wouldn't be what she wanted. Maybe even as he was saying they were beyond hope, he'd been wishing like hell for a second chance.

But with Laura's arms snug around his neck, maybe it didn't matter.

He only stopped kissing her when he heard a discreet cough from behind them-how long had it been?-and a kid in a Pythia's apron awkwardly informed them that the weekly book club met in this room...any minute.

Bill hastily removed his hands from their current position creeping down Laura's lower back.

Laura didn't even have the good grace to look embarrassed. "I think they're telling us to get a room," she whispered in his ear.

His grin widened, and he offered her his arm, cheerfully heedless of their shocked onlooker. "Shall we?"

* * *

Laura gracefully folded herself in beside him, her elegant blue dress and crisp blazer incongruous with his dusty, battered old pickup. If he'd known how this day would turn out, he'd have taken it through the car wash, and vacuumed the crumbs up out of the floorboards, and scrubbed all of Zak and Lee's smudged fingerprints off the windows...

His hand paused on the key in the ignition, the question of where to go suddenly taking on an uncomfortable weight. Is that what he'd be doing from now on? Keeping his kids scrupulously away from her, carefully writing them out of his stories about his day? And that's if she came back to Qualai-what if she wanted to stay in Caprica City?

Laura reached over and covered his hand, resting on the wheel, with hers. "Just drive," she said. "I don't care where we go."

He wanted to take her straight back to Qualai. He wanted directions to her hotel. But there was so much they needed to talk about, so much he needed to say...

He had an idea, and he hoped she'd understand.

He turned the key, and the engine sputtered to life. "I want to show you where I used to live."

* * *

He pulled up in front of a nondescript brick building. From the outside, it looked so peaceful, so quiet; there was no trace of screaming fights with Carolanne, no evidence of his despair, her rage, of the quietly eroding hope that they would ever be a family.

He did not miss this place.

"This is where Carolanne and I lived when Zak and Lee were born," he said, pointing up to the second-floor apartment on the right.

Laura's eyes were guarded again, the way they'd been when she'd first glimpsed him at that reading, as though he was a threat she needed to protect herself against. For a moment, idling by the curb, he was tempted to keep driving: to let the tension between them ease, to take Laura somewhere with dim lighting and free-flowing ambrosia, to save this story for another day. It would be so easy. They could spoon out carefully selected anecdotes about their months apart; he could talk about Saul and Ellen's recent separation, cheerfully complain about the business, vigilantly avoid any allusion to his kids, to his family, to anything he thought might hurt her. Laura wouldn't mention the article, or the accident, or the way she'd swiftly and mercilessly cut him out of her life. They'd laugh about her new book, his new client. He'd breathe in that scent of soft jasmine, while she brushed the back of his hand while she talked. They wouldn't need to talk about the future, not tonight. They could save that mess for the morning, when he still had responsibilities in Qualai, and she still had a life in Caprica City, and there was still so much hurt between them.

He wished that were enough for him. Maybe it was more than he deserved. But, Gods help him, he craved more. He wanted the sound of her laughter as he made dinner. The scent of her hair as he drifted off the sleep. The light tap of her fingers against keys as she penned murders from across the room. The warmth of her in a bed they'd shared all night long.

If he couldn't have that, if it wasn't something she wanted, too, if it wasn't something she was even capable of…he needed to know it now.

He threw the truck into park, and he threw the dice.

"My marriage was not a good one," he said.

Laura's face was expressionless. He wondered, not for the first time, if a lifetime with her would be enough for him to learn everything about her, or if some part of her would always remain opaque to him, beyond his understanding.

He cleared his throat awkwardly. He wished that he were still driving, that he had something to do with his hands while he told this story, somewhere else to look besides the faded brick that had been the backdrop for some of the worst days of his life.

"We wanted…different things. I thought—I hoped that it wouldn't matter. That we'd work it out. That we'd…that _she'd_ change, I guess."

Laura was silent, letting him talk, and somehow that hurt worse than if she'd told him how stupid he'd been. He looked away.

The light was bright now, a last blaze before it began to fade, and he remembered the way he'd squinted, walking up those stairs the last day of his marriage, when he came home, and Carolanne was gone.

"The truth is, Carolanne and I were never...compatible," he said, struggling to put it into words. "We didn't even know each other very well when..."

He paused. There was no way to put this that wasn't going to hurt her. But he needed to say it.

There had been enough secrets between them.

But Laura was already nodding. "Lee."

His hand found hers on the seat between them, and he squeezed her fingers in a wordless apology.

"Carolanne was very unhappy," he continued. "With me, with the kids, with our life. Her drinking got out of control, and then there were pills...and I didn't try hard enough. To help her, to take care of her. I failed."

Even now, the words stuck in his throat.

This time, Laura's fingers tightened around his.

"Six weeks after Zak was born, I came home to find the kids screaming and all her things gone. A note on the kitchen counter...and that was it."

Laura pulled away from him, and he went cold, before he realized the outrage in her eyes was for Carolanne, not him.

"She just left? Just like that? What about Zak and Lee?"

He shrugged. "Not even a phone call."

He took a breath. This was the hardest part. But she needed to understand what had happened. Why he'd let her go.

"Laura, back in Qualai...that morning..."

Understanding dawned in her eyes. Her fingers brushed his cheek. "I'm sorry I left like that."

_Like that_—not that she left, but the particular way that she'd done it.

The truck was less cozy then, and when Laura turned her gaze out the window, she suddenly seemed far away.

"I dream about them," she said finally. "My family. Memories from before that day, usually. Or it's now, but they're still here. Wishful thinking, I guess. But that morning..."

She paused, and he could see her steeling herself to get the words out. He wished he knew what to say, how to help her.

"We were on our way to get ice cream," she said at last. "They don't mention that in the articles. If Sandra hadn't had a craving for double-chocolate, they'd all still be alive. If I'd been a little queasy that afternoon, if I'd stayed home...I'd have a six-year-old child now."

He lifted her cold hand to his lips. _I'm sorry_ felt too thin, too empty to say out loud.

"I keep moving," she said. "I keep busy. But it's not…_over_ for me, Bill. I'm not past it or moved on from it or whatever that stupid reporter wrote. And if I stop, if I think about it…"

She took a breath. "That's what you saw that morning. I fell asleep with you, and I was fine, I was…_happy_. But when I dreamed about it—the accident—when I saw it all again…"

Her panic, waking up. Her confusion. The fear in her eyes when he'd asked her what was wrong.

Shame washed over him. It had never occurred to him that that morning could have been about anything but him. About anything but another woman leaving him without a backward glance.

He reached out for her, and she curled into him, her head coming to rest against his shoulder. He ached for the words to help her, to ease her pain. But Laura's sorrow wasn't his to fix.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked at last. "Not that morning," he clarified. "I understand that. But before-"

She let out a breath, close to his ear. She didn't move away from him.

"I've had a lot of time to think about it," she said slowly. "And it's true-it was difficult to find the right moment. It isn't...an easy story to tell. But I think...I think I just didn't want you to know."

"I see," he managed.

She sat up a little, shaking her head impatiently. "No, you don't. Being with you, the kids...it was the first time I'd had anything like that in such a long time. I didn't want it to end. I didn't want you looking at me like I was this tragic broken thing. I didn't want you watching yourself with me, editing yourself, always trying not to remind me..."

The way he had been since the moment they'd been reunited.

She sighed. "I know it isn't easy, Bill. It isn't easy for me, either. Since I woke up in that hospital, it's just been me, alone. That's what I know how to do. I don't know how to do this."

There was a part of her story he still didn't understand. Why had she been alone? The article hadn't mentioned anything about the father of her child: not if they'd been married, not if he'd been killed, not why he wasn't a part of her life now.

Back in Qualai, he'd promised himself he wouldn't ask.

But wasn't that exactly what Laura had been afraid of? That once he knew, they could never have a real conversation again?

He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand, gently. "Laura...what happened to the father?"

She let out a breath, slowly, and for a moment, he thought she wouldn't answer.

"I knew I wanted to be a teacher since I was seven years old," she said finally. "My parents were both teachers—did I ever tell you that?"

She hadn't.

"I was a good teacher," she remembered. The rueful quirk of her lips made him ache. "You wouldn't know it now, but I was good with children."

But he did know it, that was the thing. She'd been wonderful with Zak and Lee. He didn't know how to make her believe that.

"But what I wanted, what I wanted more than anything…was to have a baby."

Her voice dropped to almost a whisper. "And I thought…I thought I would have been a good mother."

His arms tightened around her. He couldn't speak.

"I was so afraid of time going by, of missing my chance. Of never living the life I really wanted."

Her voice quavered a little at that, the barest hint of a tremor.

She cleared her throat. When she spoke, her tone was flat, controlled. "So I did my research, and I chose a donor, and most of my savings later, I was pregnant."

He closed his eyes. He hadn't even wanted a child...and Laura, who'd planned, and saved, and hoped, couldn't have any at all.

Did she resent that? Did she resent _him_?

He looked out the window and up at that apartment, where he'd shared a home and a bed and a life with Carolanne without ever understanding her.

He'd avoided the tricky parts back then: tiptoed around Carolanne's unhappiness, his resentment, the growing divide between them. He'd never faced their problems, not really. Not until it was too late.

If a part of Laura hated him, if his children were an unbearable reminder of the one she'd lost...he needed to know it now.

He took a deep breath. "Laura...being with Zak and Lee..."

She met his eyes. "Hurt very much, yes."

It was what he'd been afraid of.

She paused, and he knew that everything rested on what she would say next. "But it felt good, too. Those dinners, that night I stayed with them...it was like finding something I thought I'd lost."

He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her, gently. "They miss you, you know."

Her laughter held tears. "I've missed them, too."

He waited, his hand on hers. He could not make this decision for her. Laura had to choose what she could bear.

Her free hand reached up to trace his face. "Bill...I don't know if I can do this. With you, with the boys..."

She paused. "But if you give me the chance...I would really like to try."

But he couldn't do it, not if she still had doubts. He couldn't _try_. Couldn't risk waking up to an empty bed some morning, finding the note taped to the coffee maker. Couldn't build his life around another woman who wasn't sure she wanted to be there. Not for Zak and Lee...and not for himself.

It was easier for him to be alone. Easier for Laura, too. Easier for her to stay safe in the life she'd made for herself, for him to stay protected in the confines of his. She wouldn't blame him for that choice, he knew. Not the way he'd blamed her.

She sat back, watching him intently, a new caution creeping into her eyes. He wanted to hold her, to say yes without another thought...but he couldn't.

If he walked away from this, now, Laura would survive. He had no doubt of that, even if she did. She would write more books. She would give more readings. She would smile again. But if she walked away-a week from now, a month, a year-he was no longer sure that he would. Something in him might crack, something that could never be put back together. He'd still build his houses, still make dinner for his kids...but something essential might always be missing, something that filled him, kept him from being an empty shell, an old man keeping warm with a bottle at the end of every lonely day.

And what about Zak and Lee? They'd already lost a mother. They'd already had Laura disappear once. If he brought her home now, let the kids think they were a family, and she decided some day that she couldn't do it…

It wasn't just himself that he'd be risking.

She'd said she had an offer on her house, he remembered. If she sold now, stayed in Caprica City, the kids would forget her. Maybe not entirely—maybe Lee would always demand her new book—but she'd fade from their lives, become part of their blurry, early-childhood memories, where adults did strange things all the time. But Lee was almost seven now. What if she left when he was eight? Ten?

Bill would not know how to fix that kind of damage.

There were tears in her eyes now, and he knew that Laura could tell he'd made up his mind.

He took a breath. There was no use dragging this out, hurting both of them even more.

He needed to let her go.

"Laura..." he began.

She stopped him with her lips against his. A familiar kiss, remembered from all those nights he'd crept out of her bed to go home to the kids, but not before Laura stirred awake to grace him with a goodbye kiss.

Except this time, it really was goodbye.

She pulled away first. Her half-smile broke his heart. "Drive safe."

He nodded. He would, of course.

He was good at being safe.

He was making the safe choice here, wasn't he? The only choice. Better to lose Laura now than risk a more painful loss later. Better that his children never know how much she'd cared about them than that they grow attached, too.

Would Zak and Lee thank him for that someday? Thank him for the mother who hadn't left them, because he'd left her behind long ago?

Laura reached for the door handle. Without thinking, he stopped her with a hand on her arm.

She sighed. "Bill..."

_I was so afraid of time going by, of missing my chance. Of never living the life I really wanted._

If he walked away from this now, he'd always know he'd missed the life he really wanted, too.

Laura had been brave enough to go after what she wanted, to step out into an unknown future alone.

Why couldn't he have the courage to hold onto what was right in front of him?

After everything she'd survived, everything she'd lost, Laura was willing to choose life. To choose hope.

He could not possibly do less.

He pressed a kiss to the corner of her eye, where a tear was just threatening to fall. "How soon can I take you home?"

Her smile, when it finally broke on her face, was so bright, so full of joy, that it brought tears to his eyes, too.

Maybe Laura would leave him. Maybe she'd kill him. But maybe...maybe it would be worth it.

And this time, when her lips met his, he knew that he was the one who had just come home.


	28. The Breakfast

_And for the guest who asked: Joe and Owen are characters in the novel Laura is currently writing; Will and Maura are characters in her last book, the one she writes at the start of the fic, inspired by her run-in with Bill._

* * *

**Chapter 28: The Breakfast**

* * *

The first time the alarm went off, Laura burrowed further into the warmth of Bill's chest and tried to ignore the screeching wail of a new day and waiting responsibilities.

The bed was so comfortable…and she'd had a late night, after all.

* * *

_She could have waited, she supposed. She hadn't accumulated much in the way of personal touches in her time at the Caprica City Grand (hadn't that been the point?) but still, she'd been living there for months: she had a closet full of clothes, stacks of books, scattered papers and notes on her work in progress. She could have packed up at her leisure...neatly folded her sweaters, organized mail and old magazines, and driven back to Qualai herself in the morning. It was barely a few hours difference, she knew. After all this time, what did it matter?_

_Instead, she crammed it all heedlessly into a few empty boxes she begged off the front desk when she informed them that she'd be checking out in twenty minutes. _

_"It's a good thing you brought the truck," she told Bill as they heaved the last of her things into the flat bed. _

_"Keep that in mind when I tell you the air conditioning's out," he said, in a grumble that couldn't quite steal the smile off his face. _

_She leaned back against the truck and folded her arms around his neck. "In that case I'm going to have to rethink this whole thing," she informed him. "It was nice to see you and all, but humidity's kind of a deal breaker-"_

_She watched him fail miserably to wrestle a smile into submission. "Guess I'll see you this fall, then."_

_"I'll send you a postcard," she promised. _

_His grin broke loose from his face. "Don't put yourself out."_

_She wasn't waiting another minute._

* * *

The second time, she reached over Bill to slap the damn thing off altogether.

"I have to get up," Bill mumbled, making no move to actually do so.

"Mmm," Laura agreed, stretching lazily, Bill's worn sheets cool and soft against her skin, his arms warm against her bare back.

"Work," Bill continued, pressing his face into her hair, his voice muffled. "Kids. Dog."

"You do that," Laura replied sleepily, patting his chest, notwithstanding the leg curled prohibitively across his body.

"I am," Bill rumbled in her ear, in between kisses pressed into her hair.

She sighed in contentment and let her eyes drift shut.

* * *

_The drive from Caprica City had seemed to take twice as long as it usually did. Laura had watched each mile marker impatiently, her hand on Bill's knee, touched by his slow, careful driving (for her sake, she knew), wishing he'd just floor it and get her home already. _

_But as they pulled into the driveway, Laura's pulse quickened, her stomach lurching queasily. _

_Qualai looked just as she had left it. Pigeons pecked at crumbs on quiet sidewalks while a few late-evening customers meandered in and out of stores. The 'Open' sign flashed in the window of that terrible bar Bill favored, the sounds of mingling voices talking over an outdated ballad drifting out into the street. A few lights remained on in most houses they passed, as people settled down for the night and made their way to bed. _

_The trees that lined her street remained lush with leaves, not yet touched by the first chill of fall. Bill's house looked just as it had that night she'd walked across the lawn to stay with Zak and Lee. _

_Her house was dark and quiet. But then, she lived alone; her house often looked that way when she came home. If it weren't for the For Sale sign planted on her lawn, she could almost pretend-_

_But she hadn't just stepped out, and she wasn't just coming home at the end of the day. _

_Bill turned off the truck, and the sudden silence made her heart beat faster. _

_"I'm going to check on Zak and Lee and let Saul know he can go on home, and then we'll get you all unpacked," he promised. "Are you hungry? Saul probably got the kids drive-through, but there should be-"_

_But Laura wasn't listening. What if Zak and Lee weren't happy to see her? What if Bill was wrong, and they hadn't missed her, after all? What if they couldn't forgive her for leaving without saying goodbye?_

"_Bill," she began, "maybe this should wait till tomorrow…"_

_From behind the wheel, he cut her a sideways look, and she knew her attempt to stall for time had not gone unnoticed. _

_"If you'd like," was all he said. _

_Tomorrow would be better...she could get some sleep, clean up, figure out what she wanted to say-_

_And then the door opened, and two little heads peeked out._

* * *

A loud ringing-not the alarm, it was too far away-startled her out of her half-sleep.

Was that the doorbell? At this hour?

She untangled herself from Bill to sit up.

He didn't look surprised, only resigned. "That'll be Dee," he sighed, heaving himself to his feet with a grunt.

She watched in undisguised appreciation as he stumbled around the bedroom, gathering a pair of jeans off the floor, an undershirt out of a drawer, a threadbare flannel off the back of a chair. He ran a hand through his hair-longer now than when she'd left, she noticed; she thought she might prefer it this way-and only succeeded in making the back stick up worse.

She smiled. "Bill..." she began-and was cut off by a yawn.

He smiled, too, hands busy on the buttons of his shirt. "Go back to sleep," he urged. "I'll make sure the kids leave you alone. Get Dee to take them to the park, maybe."

With a last smile, he disappeared out the door, shutting it carefully behind him. Laura collapsed back against the pillows, luxuriating in the feel of the sunlight from Bill's big windows against her skin.

It was a tempting offer. But...

* * *

_Her breath caught. _

_Zak and Lee hadn't seen her yet; they were focused on their father. She watched them come running out of the house in their Viper pilot pajamas, their feet bare against the grass. She couldn't tear her eyes away. Were they taller than when she'd seen them last? _

_"Laura?"_

_Bill said something more, but she couldn't hear him. _

_Her fingers fumbled with the catch of her seat belt, the handle of the door. She stumbled out of the truck-were her muscles numb from the drive, or were her legs trembling?_

_Zak was halfway to his father. Lee was right behind him-and then his gaze found hers. His blue eyes widened. _

_Slowly, Laura sank to her knees. _

_Lee stopped still. _

_Laura held her breath. _

_She never knew which one of them moved first, if Lee began to run or she held out her arms-but there were little arms around her neck, and she was holding onto Lee like he was as a life preserver. _

_She didn't let go until Zak scampered over and shoved his brother aside to push his way into her arms, too._

* * *

She padded into the kitchen on bare feet, wrapped up in the thick brown robe she'd found hanging from a hook in the bathroom. She was aware that coming downstairs in Bill's bathrobe wasn't the most appropriate thing in the worlds, but somehow pulling on yesterday's hopelessly wrinkled dress seemed even worse. Her things were all still in boxes in the garage. She'd meant to haul them next door, but it had gotten so late...

* * *

_Bill scrambled eggs at the stove for a late-night snack while Zak and Lee, both talking at once, attempted to catch Laura up on the end of school and their living room fort and Viper's new favorite squeaky toy. Viper put his paws up on the counter and tried to steal the eggs out of the pan. Bill shooed him away while piling eggs into Zak's plate. Lee went running to his room and came back with his new favorite book to shove excitedly into her lap. _

_After months of only the quiet of her hotel room, the chaos was overwhelming. She'd been exhausted before she even stepped foot through the door. But as her hand automatically went out to swat Viper away from her plate while she nodded at something Lee was saying, it occurred to her that she hadn't forgotten everything, after all. _

_Maybe finding her place here again wouldn't be as hard as she'd thought._

* * *

Bill didn't bat an eye when she slipped into a seat at the kitchen table between Zak and Lee.

"Morning," he said, handing her a mug of coffee.

Dee-or at least, the young woman in sweatpants helping Zak with his breakfast that Laura guessed was Dee-caught sight of her and accidentally poured cereal all over the table.

Laura smiled and held out her hand. "I'm Laura Roslin. You must be the Dee that Bill couldn't do without."

Dee's tentative smile told Laura that overnight guests were apparently not the norm in the Adama house.

"Dee's starting pre-med next year," Bill informed her.

"That's wonderful," Laura said, taking a sip of her coffee and trying not to wince at the bitterness. Bill had many lovely qualities, but making coffee was clearly not one of them. This would have to be her domain. "Can I call you with questions about corpses?"

Dee paused. "Are you planning to murder a lot of people with the periodic table?"

"Dad won't let me talk about murders at breakfast," Lee whispered.

"Do you want breakfast?" Zak asked her, holding out his cereal bowl.

"I'm more of a coffee person," Laura replied tactfully.

A line furrowed Lee's brow. "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day," he informed her.

She kissed the top of his head. "I'll keep that in mind," she promised.

* * *

_By the time Bill got the kids to sleep, it was after midnight. Laura's eyes were so heavy..._

_She was too tired to go through her boxes to find the one that held her clothes, or to bother making any noises about sleeping at her house. She was too tired to do anything, in fact, but collapse in Bill's bed, and pull the covers up. _

_If he was surprised to see her there when he returned from tucking Zak in, he didn't mention it. _

_"Good night," he mumbled, crawling in beside her and curling his body around hers. "Tomorrow we'll-"_

_Laura was already asleep._

* * *

Bill cleared his throat. "I'm already fifteen minutes late, so Zak and Lee-" he looked at each of them in turn, his tone serious, "be good for Dee. Laura, I'm sure you have unpacking to do, but I'll try to make it home for supper-"

"Unpacking here?" Lee interrupted.

Bill's eyes met hers.

This, they hadn't discussed.

Laura's eyebrows lifted, but she stayed silent. Lee had been asking his father, not her.

Bill hesitated, his eyes a clear question. "I'm not sure Laura-"

"Guys, why don't we go upstairs and get dressed-" Dee began.

Lee ignored her, his eyes now on Laura.

That would be bad, wouldn't it? Surely there was only one right answer here. She would unpack at her house. She would make regular visits. She would do this slowly, patiently, the right way.

But...maybe tomorrow.

She stuck her hand in Zak's box of cereal. "I'm not sure the power's even turned on at my house," she told Lee. "Can I hang out here for a few days?"

Judging by Dee's bemused face, Bill's stern expression wasn't fooling anyone.

"I think that could be arranged," he said.

Lee's eyes widened.

Laura took a placid sip of that terrible coffee. "Aren't you late?"

Bill cursed, Zak giggled, and Dee just looked confused.

Laura smiled.

She could do this.


	29. The Box

**Chapter 29: The Box**

* * *

"Could you take a morning off?" Laura asked abruptly, as they finished hauling the last of her boxes into the front hall of her house.

He set down a carton overflowing with a worrisome assortment of paper—scraps with one line scrawled on them, newspaper clippings with headlines circled, and a troubling list of deadly weapons with questions marks beside them that Laura had succinctly labeled "story notes"—and looked around him.

He hadn't been with Laura yesterday when she first turned the key in the lock. The lights were shining now, and the breeze from the open windows was beginning to clear the stale, shut-up heat, the scent of dust and dereliction that still clung to the rooms. Much of the house was just the same as it had the last time he'd been invited in, that last evening they'd shared here at the beginning of the summer. Laura's books still filled the shelves; her big cast iron pot still sat on the stove. But still, stepping over the threshold had felt oddly disquieting.

It had been so long since this house had been anything to him but an open wound. And even now, a small part of him felt like it was taking Laura away from him.

He'd known Laura's stay with him and the boys was temporary. Even so, he couldn't suppress a pang this morning as first his bedroom, and then his bathroom sink, and finally his garage and his truck bed had emptied of her things. They both knew it was best to take this slowly. They'd only just found each other again; they all needed time to get used to each other, to find their rhythm again. Laura was used to living alone, accustomed to quiet and solitude for her work and space and privacy for her thoughts. He hadn't shared a home with another adult since he'd had to search Carolanne's drawers for pills, and the boys had never had to share him with anyone but each other. Zak and Lee loved Laura, and they seemed to have accepted her back into their lives with an ease that Bill envied...but he wasn't naive enough to think that would make the transition a simple one.

But even so, the last three days...waking up with Laura's arm curled across his chest, readying the kids for the day as she stumbled blearily around, clutching a cup of coffee...tossing a salad for dinner and watching as she absently scratched Viper's ears and told Lee all about how she'd come up with the idea for the dismemberment at the end of her last book...following Laura into the bedroom at the end of the night (not quite their bedroom, not yet, but not quite only his anymore, either), locking the door behind them…

He didn't want it to be over.

But this wasn't an ending, he reminded himself. This was the beginning, the start of something real between them, something unhindered by secrets sorrows or hidden doubts.

Something that would last, something to build a life on.

He wiped his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand. From the smirk touching Laura's lips, he guessed that he'd just smudged grime from the truck across his face.

"A morning off for what?" he asked, pointedly ignoring her amusement.

Her smile turned tentative. "I need to make a trip back up to Caprica City," she said after the barest hesitation.

"For your car," he said carefully.

It hadn't occurred to him at the time to wonder what had become of her car, but Laura had mentioned yesterday that she'd left it behind when she'd come back with him. It was parked in a garage in a rented space, she'd said; keeping a car was an inconvenience in the city. She'd been thinking of selling it when she'd thought she wouldn't come back to Qualai.

Laura didn't answer.

She took a bronze clip from the box she'd just set on the table and began to put up her hair, piling red waves tangling from their morning's work on top of her head. He watched her carefully comb through the snarls with her fingers, her lips pressed together.

His stomach clenched. Four days, barely a step into her house, and already she was hiding from him again?

Her eyes flickered up to his, and he saw Laura again. Not the woman he'd constructed in his mind, the image he'd clung to after she'd disappeared: Laura who'd kept herself at a distance, who'd never cared about him, who always had one foot out of the door. This was the Laura who'd brushed her teeth beside him at the sink this morning with her eyes still half-closed, who'd fallen asleep last night kissing his neck, who'd held his hand parked outside his old apartment.

He waited.

"When I bought this house…I put everything in storage," Laura said slowly. "My sisters' things, my parents,' all the photographs, everything that would remind me. It wasn't that I thought I could forget, but I wanted…I needed to make my life about something else."

He nodded. He understood perfectly. After Carolanne left, he'd tossed everything: the clothes still hanging in her closet, the hairbrush left behind in the bathroom, even the last magazine she'd flipped through. (_What are you doing?_ Lee had asked, solemnly watching his father shove his mother's shoes into a black plastic garbage bag, and, guiltily, Bill had lied, and said he was forwarding it all to Carolanne. Later, under cover of darkness, he'd buried it all deep in the dumpster out back.)

Laura paused, uncertainty tightening her face. He wondered if they would ever know each other well enough for her to let go of being so careful, if she would ever feel safe enough with him to blurt out whatever was on her mind without hesitating.

But maybe that wasn't fair, he told himself. It wasn't his place to try to change her.

"But now that I'm back…" Her eyes lifted to the pale empty walls, the neat shelves that held no photographs. "I want to make a home here, not an escape," she said at last. "And I want my family with me." She paused, and the fragile trust in her eyes made him burn to be worthy of it. "Would you come with me?"

Bill did not even want to think about how deeply crotchety Saul was going to be at the prospect of covering a morning's worth of meetings alone, and then the kids in the afternoon, or what kind of favor he was going to have to promise in return…but he wasn't going to mention any of that to Laura.

Instead, he closed the distance between them to press a gentle kiss against her temple. "I would be honored."

* * *

Laura had been quiet on the drive up to the storage unit just outside Caprica City. He'd made a few gentle attempts at conversation, remarking on the heat, the traffic, apologizing for his still-defective air conditioning…and every time, Laura had smiled, her eyes a little distant, and said something vague in reply, and returned to staring out the window. He'd taken the hint, and squeezed her knee, and stopped trying to fill the silence. Laura had come up here to face her demons, not hide from them. Distraction wasn't what she needed now.

He'd meant what he'd said; he was honored that she'd asked him to come with her for this, to be by her side as she stepped back into her past. Bill had never imagined himself the most self-aware man on the planet, but he knew this: if what had happened to Laura had happened to him, he would not be standing here now. He would not have penned bestsellers or decorated a new house. He'd have staggered to the nearest bar and settled in for the duration, working his way through a tab he would have had not the slightest intention of living to pay off. And if somehow, by some miracle, he had managed to survive the first few years, and found a life that let him close his eyes at night…he would not ever have mustered the courage to come back.

He liked to think he was past holding onto any illusions about Laura. They were both far from perfect. And if he was willing to take the lion's share of the guilt for what had gone wrong this summer, he was too much of a realist to blame himself entirely. He knew—and he believed Laura would agree—that nothing could survive between them if they treated her sorrow as a carte blanche, a blanket pardon for whatever she might say or do.

But when he thought of her waking up in that hospital room alone…packing up her family's things, storing them out of sight…he could not help but be in awe of her strength.

But now, as Laura worked to wheedle open the padlock, nearly rusted shut, he could see that her fingers were trembling, and as they strained to lift the heavy gate, she pressed her lips together as though she were holding back a cry of pain.

He wished he believed it were only from the exertion.

He didn't have to ask to know she hadn't been back here in six years.

When they finally pushed the gate up, and the little room was revealed, the blood drained from Laura's face.

Furniture was shoved up against the walls, chairs lying sideways on top of tables and a lamp balanced precariously atop a headboard. Boxes were stacked into messy, haphazard towers, threatening to spill their contents onto the floor at the lightest touch. From the broken glass behind a dresser, Bill could see that damage had already been done, even locked away untouched. The boxes themselves weren't in much better shape. Most of them had been left unsealed, and he could only pray that Laura had been more careful with the box that held her photographs. Most of the boxes were unlabeled, a few marked by a shaky, unruly scrawl, so different from his Laura's careful, precise penmanship that it made his chest ache.

He swallowed hard, pulling himself together. This was about Laura, not him.

Careful not to startle her, he wrapped a gentle arm around her shoulders. He could feel her chest rise and fall with deliberate, even inhales and exhales, the way he remembered the nurses coaching Carolanne to breathe through the pain during labor.

He pulled her closer into his chest.

"I thought I'd packed everything more neatly than this," she said at last, her voice unusually quiet, but steady.

She made no move forward.

He could ask her if she wanted to leave. She didn't have to do this, after all; hadn't she suffered enough? She could take the truck to pick up some takeout while he cleaned up the broken glass and swept away the thick layer of dust. He could pick out a few cartons of her things, some furniture, and load it up onto the truck without her ever having to step foot inside. If they picked up her car first, she could start on home, while he stayed behind…

But she'd asked him for his help doing this thing. If she wanted to go, he'd start up the engine this minute, no questions asked. Somehow, though…he didn't think that was the kind of help she needed today.

He kissed the top of her head. "Laura…would you introduce me to your family?"

She inhaled sharply, and he feared he'd said the wrong thing.

Then her arm wound through his, and she squeezed his fingers, and together, they walked in.

Laura was silent as she moved through the space, righting a lamp, passing her fingers across a dresser. Bill's fingers itched to grab the broom from the truck, to start fixing this for her. But he waited. This hot little storage unit was all that Laura had left of her family. He would not touch one shard of glass until she gave him permission.

When she turned back to him, Bill could see the tears sparkling in her eyes even in the dim light. But there was a smile on her face, a rueful blend of humor and grief, of homecoming and loss, and when she held out her hand for him, a hot lump rose in his throat.

"I found the pictures." she said.

She settled down on the dirty cement, on a patch of bare floor between a tall bookshelf and a large canvas left leaning up against the wall. Ignoring the dust—he spent most of his days on construction sights, he could handle a little filth—he squeezed in cross-legged, his knees nearly on top of hers. He rested a hand on her leg while she flipped through the box.

"This is my father," she said, holding out a snapshot of an older man with light hair just beginning to recede and serious green eyes behind horn-rimmed frames. He was smiling broadly, holding out a platter of precisely sliced meat.

Laura's eyes were soft. "He took his carving very seriously." She paused. "That was our last Solstice together."

Bill's thumb stroked her thigh in sympathy.

Laura cleared her throat. "This is my mother," she said, her fingertips lightly gripping the edges of a posed shot, of a woman with gray eyes and Laura's red hair beside thirty or so school-age children. He could read "Apollo Elementary" carved into the squat brick building behind them.

"You look like her," Bill observed carefully.

A tear slipped free of Laura's tight control. She brushed at it impatiently with the back of her hand. "Not like my sisters did," she replied, in a voice far steadier than he would have believed. "Let me show you…"

Picture after picture, and every one broke his heart. Little Laura with her two very little sisters, three girls with varying shades of the same bright red hair; a little older, all of them dressed up, smiling into the camera; three girls stretched out on fluffy towels on a pier, all wearing the same big sunglasses.

Bill had been an only child, and there had always been a tension in his family, secrets buzzing just under the surface of even the most benign domestic moments. Later, he would learn about his father's first family, and he would wonder if his father's first wife had laughed easily in the way that his mother did not, if the first William Adama had used up his father's easy approval, his open affection. Bill had loved his father, loved his mother. But there was a reason he'd left Tauron long ago.

But Laura…Laura had had the family he'd craved as a child, the family he'd tried to build for his own children…and she'd lost it.

He could not imagine what that felt like.

Laura got to her feet at last and wiped at her damp cheek with her wrist. Her smile was a little embarrassed, and he knew it would take time for her to get used to sharing this with him. He could not rush her.

"Let's get this stuff packed up," she said, her tone suddenly brisk. "We still have my car to pick up, and a long drive ahead of us."

But even as they started shifting furniture, closing up boxes, discussing where to put what, he couldn't get the pain in her eyes out of his head.

He couldn't fix what had happened to her, what she'd suffered. He knew that.

But there had to be some way for him to help her, to make her grief a little lighter. A way for her to remember what she'd had, without being torn apart by what she'd lost. A way for her to keep her family close, while staying in the present, making new memories…

He picked up a snapshot from the box, absently tapping his thumb against the lid.

He thought he might have an idea.


	30. The Cake

_*turns on light* *blows dust off fic* *sneezes*_

_I know, it's been forever. But I am going to finish this thing if it kills me..._

* * *

**Chapter 30: The Cake**

* * *

Laura tilted her head to one side and squinted at Bill's masterpiece.

It wasn't her imagination; the cake was definitely lopsided. It was...well, _roughly _circular, which Laura was fairly certain had been the shape Bill had been trying for. But there was a definite…well, _dent_, a depression right on top where the chocolate sagged in on itself and went flat. Maybe it was all that jumping around from the kids while it was in the oven, Laura mused. Maybe it would be better if they flipped it…

Laura tilted her head the other way.

On second thought, she decided…maybe it would be safer not to move it.

"It's…probably delicious," she said truthfully.

Bill glowered at her over the top of his glasses, the intimidating effect somewhat married by the smear of chocolate on his nose.

A smile tugged at her lips as Laura wiped the smudge off gently with her thumb. "I think it's perfect," she said more softly.

A reluctant flush crept up Bill's stubbly cheeks. He buried flour-coated hands in his pockets. "I don't bake," he rumbled.

Laura's smiled widened. "But Lee only turns seven once, right?"

Bill sighed. "I feel old."

If Laura had been willing to indulge herself, she might have been feeling a little old today herself. She might have wondered about another cake, crafted by two very proud aunts in a little apartment back in Caprica City. She might have thought about the presents she would have bought for that seven-year-old, the terrible decorations she might have hung in her once-immaculate living room. She might have wished for the embarrassing stories she could have told, the labor pains she might have complained about, the memory still so fresh, even after seven years.

But Lee was not that child, and his birthday was his own, and Laura wasn't going to let anything spoil that. Not today.

She pretended to inspect Bill more carefully. "You do look a little older than yesterday," she said. "Do you think you might be going a little gray?"

Bill's eyes narrowed.

"Of course," she continued, "it could just be the flour in your hair…"

She'd missed this. In the past few weeks she'd been working around the clock finishing up her book, due at the publisher's next month, and Bill had been spending long days out of town on a new project. On Monday he'd be out of the house before dawn again, and she'd be hunched over her draft...but it felt good to have today.

"No, I think it's gray," she continued, smiling brightly.

Bill was saved—or she was—from a reply by Zak and Lee running into the room, Viper chasing after them, barking happily, his big paws scrabbling at the smooth tile of the kitchen floor.

Laura wouldn't have expressed her feelings in quite such deafening manner as the dog. But she felt a certain kinship with his bright eyes, his joyfully wagging tail.

She was happy to be here, too.

She'd set her alarm extra early last night so that she could be here first thing in the morning to wish Lee a happy birthday. She hadn't wanted to attend Lee's birthday party like a guest; she'd wanted to be present for all of it, like a member of the family.

She hadn't put it quite like that when she'd asked Bill if he minded if she came over early, but she'd been certain he'd known what she meant, anyway.

She'd understand if Bill wanted to keep Lee's birthday to just himself and the boys, she'd told herself. She had been spending quite a bit of time with them lately, it was true…but she knew better than to take her place here for granted. Bill and the boys were a family...a family she wasn't a part of, not yet.

But she knew she wanted to be.

Bill had slipped off his glasses and regarded her silently for a moment. But all he'd said was "Good, because I wrap like I don't have thumbs, and Zak still isn't allowed to use grown-up scissors."

This was new for all of them, Laura kept reminding herself. The future she wanted, the future she thought Bill wanted—they would get there. She believed that. It would just take time…for all of them.

"Is it ready yet?" Zak squealed, bouncing up and down on his heels.

He spoke more than before she had gone away, Laura had noticed. Lee was still the more talkative of the pair by a long shot, a dynamic that was Laura had a feeling wouldn't be altered, no matter how old they grew or how they might change. But Zak was speaking up more, asking questions, voicing opinions…even as he trailed after Lee the way Viper followed devotedly behind him.

Of course, Laura realized, she had no way of knowing how Zak behaved when she wasn't around. Maybe he'd been quieter around her, and he was just now beginning to relax, to act with her the way he did with his father and brother.

Either way...Laura was grateful.

"Of course it's not ready," Lee answered for his father. "There's no frosting yet. There's going to be frosting, right Dad?"

Horror dawned in Bill's eyes.

Laura smothered a smile.

"Of course there's going to be frosting," Bill declared after a pause. "Why you don't you both take Viper outside so I can-" he cleared his throat, "—work on that."

Lee's forehead furrowed. "Are you sure you don't need our help?"

Laura was forced to turn her laughter into a cough.

Bill glared at her. "I'll be fine," he informed Lee. "Laura's going to help me."

Lee turned his skeptical gaze on her. "Do you know anything about cake?"

The last cake Laura had baked had been in the tiny kitchen of Sandra's studio apartment. It had been late at night, and they'd shouted ingredients at each other over terrible music and both had too much wine, and in the morning they'd whipped up icing by hand and eaten the cake for breakfast, straight off the plate.

"I'm a frosting _expert_," she informed Lee.

The smile on his face made it worth it.

* * *

Laura's phone buzzed in her pocket, and she ignored it.

Lee's face was lit by the quavering flames of the seven thin candles of the cake on the table in front of him. It had turned out all right, Laura thought; the cake wouldn't be on the cover of _Caprica City Style_, but her mother's recipe for buttercream frosting had been thick enough to cover the dent on top, and the arrangement of the candles had helped the whole thing not look quite so lopsided…_somewhat_.

"I want cake," Zak announced, wiggling his foot impatiently.

Lee hesitated.

"Make a wish," Laura reminded him.

Lee was still—and then he screwed up his face and blew all seven candles out in one breath.

As they all cheered—and Viper, excited by the noise, barked until he was let out—Laura wondered what Lee had wished for.

She knew what her wish would be.

Bill cut slices of cake, ladling on ice cream on top; to mute the flavor in case it hadn't quite turned out, Laura guessed.

She took a big bite, keeping her features perfectly schooled.

"Delicious," she informed him, her smile wide.

After all, it was almost true.

Zak and Lee appeared too excited to notice the slightly…_acidic_ flavor.

"Can we do presents now?" Lee begged.

Surreptitiously, while Bill went to get the gifts, Laura checked her phone.

It was Richard.

Laura wasn't surprised; he'd been leaving her daily messages for weeks, wanting to know how the draft was going, how close she was to finishing, when she'd be available to come up to Caprica City to work on it with him…

It was how they'd edited her last book, eighteen months ago: she'd moved into a hotel room for a few weeks, and Richard had come over every day, to work on revisions…among other things.

That was when she'd broken things off with him for the last time. Days with Richard had turned, inevitably, into late nights with Richard…before he had to head home to his wife. It wasn't that she'd wanted more from him, exactly; by the time he'd left each night, she'd been more than ready for him to go. Richard Adar was the best editor in the business, her friend when it suited him, her lover when it was convenient. It had been exactly what she'd wanted, what she'd needed…hadn't it?

But something had gone stale that last time, the comfort she'd once received from Richard's presence growing cool and empty, and she'd known it was time to move on.

Now...she couldn't imagine going back.

"Presents!" Zak exclaimed.

Laura wrenched her mind back to the moment. This was Lee's birthday. Richard could wait.

She watched Lee unwrap the pyramid ball from his brother, the miniature Viper from his father. Then it was her turn.

"This one's from me," Laura said, suddenly nervous.

She watched, her breath caught, as Lee carefully unwrapped the flat rectangular box and peered questioningly at the object inside.

"Murder?"

"It's a game," she explained too quickly. "You go from room to room, and you find clues, and you figure out who did it, and how—"

Lee's smile slowly dawned on his face, and she knew he understood. "Can we play right away?"

Zak looked bored. "Can I eat Lee's cake?"

"Say 'thank you,'" Bill reminded Lee.

Lee rolled his eyes. "I was just going to!" he insisted.

Laura smiled. "You're welcome."

Lee beamed and started handing out pieces.

They weren't a family yet. But they were getting there.

Later, after Bill had been revealed to have been the murderer, while Lee chased Viper around the backyard with his new toy, and Bill hauled Zak, sticky with ice cream and covered in chocolate, off to a bath, Laura ducked outside and dialed Richard's private number.

_Death at the Dirty Hands_ needed work, and soon, if she were going to make her deadline. She knew that.

But she wasn't going to lose another moment here. Not for anything.

"Richard, I'm not leaving Qualai just now," she said. "If you want to work on the draft, you're going to have to come to me."


	31. The Dinner, Part III

_Because I know it's been forever, for anyone still reading this thing, a quick recap of where we stand: Laura is back in Qualai, living next door; Bill is hard at work on a Secret Project; Richard has come to town to work with Laura on the draft of her new book…_

* * *

There were a number of hardships that Bill Adama was prepared to bear with cheerfulness and good humor.

Laura's ex-boyfriend sleeping over at her house was not one of them.

Richard leaned across the table to pour himself a generous measure of what was, by Bill's resentful count, his third glass of wine since they'd sat down to dinner.

_In front of my kids_, Bill fumed silently.

If Bill had been more agreeably inclined towards this particular meal, and this particular _guest_, he might have admitted that Saul had consumed far more at his table, on more than one occasion, without Bill batting an eye over the effect on his children or his budget. But Bill was decidedly _not_ so inclined.

He moved the bottle in front of his own place, just outside of Richard's reach. If it was petty, so be it.

"So, Bill," Richard continued, a thousand-watt smile on his smooth face that made Bill's skin crawl, "you're a contractor, isn't that right?"

Down the table, seated beside his bored and entirely oblivious brother, Lee narrowed his eyes at their guest.

Maybe Lee didn't understand quite the nature of the battle being waged here tonight. But at seven years old, Lee was apparently old enough to know a diss when he heard one.

Bill appreciated his son's sense of loyalty. At least _someone_ here was on his side.

"Architect," Bill grunted, which he would have wagered this month's mortgage payment that Richard knew.

Above the table, Laura reached over and squeezed his hand. Bill tried not to flinch at her touch.

* * *

_She had barely mentioned it._

"_Are you staying tonight?" Bill had whispered into her hair, as they'd curled up on the couch together three nights before, when Richard Adar was just a name, and not the jackass taking up space at his dinner table._

"_I can't," she'd said, shaking her head regretfully. "Richard's coming in tomorrow morning to work on the book, and I have to get my guest room ready."_

_Bill had blinked. Laura's editor was coming, he'd known that, but…_

"_He's staying with you?"_

_She'd rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "Qualai has many charming qualities, Bill, but a good hotel is not one of them. I don't want to hear his complaints. Besides, we'll be working around the clock, trying to get the book finished up in time for a release early next year. This will save time."_

_She'd leaned into him and kissed him then, a slow, lingering kiss that made it hard to argue with her._

"_He's doing me a favor," she'd added, her tone softer. "I usually go up to Caprica City for this kind of thing, but I didn't want to leave you and the boys..."_

_It was that last part that stung._

* * *

"Weren't you finishing up with the Agathon house this morning?" Laura asked now, her smile apologetic.

If Bill had currently been voluntarily speaking to Laura, soothing smiles might have helped, might have made him feel like they were in this together, a united front at this unpleasant occasion. Now, the hopeful tilt of her mouth just made the blood pound more furiously in his ears.

He realized that Lee was staring at him, his little face pink with concern. Deliberately, Bill relaxed his death grip on his fork.

"I was working on another project," he answered Laura tersely.

A project he didn't want to think about, not now. A project he'd sunk months of early mornings and late nights into, not to mention hundreds of dollars, and too many called-in favors to count…

* * *

_He'd been driving back this afternoon from a few stolen hours at that project, in fact, when he'd finally had a moment to give Laura a call. She'd been holed up at her house, hard at work on her draft, since her editor's arrival two days before. He hadn't wanted to interfere. He knew Laura needed to focus. But he wanted to check if she needed anything, if he could drop by some groceries, or run an errand for her…_

_And he'd wanted to hear her voice._

"_It's…going," she'd answered his question, sighing. "Rewrites have never been my favorite part. But—" _

_Bill could hear a man's voice, muffled, in the background, and Laura broke off, laughing._

…_and suddenly it was six years ago, and he was walking into his apartment to the scent of a musky cologne that wasn't his, and his wife's voice was low and sultry, coming from the bedroom, and the only question on Bill's mind was whether Lee had seen it._

_He'd taken a deep, steadying breath, his fingers digging painfully into the steering wheel._

_Laura wasn't Carolanne. He loved her. He trusted her. He didn't have to be on guard for lies and secrets and betrayals. This was Laura._

_And she deserved better from him._

_Shame had washed over him, hot and queasy. Laura had so few people in her life; how could he possibly begrudge her an old friend? It was good that he could make her laugh. He should be grateful to this Richard, not suspicious. Anyone who had been good to Laura was a good guy in his book._

_An idea had occurred to him. _

"_I'm calling to invite you to dinner," he'd invented. "You and your editor. You won't have to waste time cooking or picking something up, and—" it was true enough, wasn't it?"—I'd love to meet him."_

"_That's really not necessary, Bill," Laura had said after a pause. "I appreciate the offer, and so does Richard, but we'll probably be working straight through dinner—"_

_She'd been interrupted by the same voice, too distant for Bill to make out the words. He'd waited through their muffled conversation. _

_Laura's voice had sounded weary when she'd come back on the phone. "We'd love to."_

_Maybe rewrites were proving more difficult than she'd let on, Bill had figured. Maybe he and the kids could cheer her up._

_He'd gotten home in time to give the house a fast clean-up, the boys a stern talking to on good behavior in front of Laura's friend, and the Scorpian takeout his good dishes. He would have liked to have had the time to get the house sparkling, or bathe the kids, or at least cook dinner…but that wasn't important, he told himself. This evening wasn't about impressing anyone. It was about making someone important to Laura feel welcome._

_And then he'd opened the door, and the stranger with the artfully mussed blond hair standing beside Laura had sucked the air right out of his lungs._

"_Richard Adar," said the man Bill had seen Laura kissing on her porch, so many months ago. He held out his hand to shake Bill's, wearing the least sincere smile Bill had ever seen in his life. "Billy, isn't it?"_

"_Bill," he'd corrected automatically, shaking his hand numbly, his eyes sliding away from the infinitesimal smirk on Richard's face to the clear discomfort tightening Laura's. _

_The thought had flashed through his mind, suddenly, hollowing the pit of his stomach, that he didn't know on which one of them her unease centered: if she was uncomfortable with him meeting Richard…or with Richard meeting him._

_He had never asked Laura about that man he'd seen her snuggled up to, on their first almost-date. They hadn't been together then. He hadn't told Laura about every one of his former partners, either. It wasn't any of his business. _

_But in all the times Laura had mentioned her editor, she'd never even hinted that there was anything more to their relationship than business. _

_And she'd let Bill invite him into his home like it was nothing._

* * *

Distantly, he heard Lee's faint but persistent "Dad?"

With an effort, he wrenched his mind back to the present, to this meal and this conversation that would not end.

Richard sighed deeply; as though he wanted to his weary exhalation to carry to the last seats of an imaginary theater, Bill thought irritably.

"The last time we renovated, the architect was _always_ 'working on another project,'" Richard commented innocently, gracelessly reaching past Bill for the wine, his clumsy hand almost knocking over Bill's glass.

_Man can't even hold his liquor_, Bill thought bitterly—and then he froze, the sounds of silverware against china fading away, Lee's confusion, Zak's sleepy boredom, the tension in Laura's eyes, all blurring into the background.

There was something else Laura hadn't mentioned.

If his children hadn't been present, Bill would have been reaching for the wine, now, too. Instead, he gripped his fingers around his water glass, willing the cold to calm his simmering temper, before he said something he would regret as much as this dinner.

"_We _as in you and your wife?" he asked instead, his voice very quiet.

Even Bill, fool as he might have been, couldn't miss the pale indentation marking Richard's third finger, where a wedding band clearly belonged.

"Yes," Richard said after a pause—but not before he chanced a quick sidelong glance down the table, at Laura.

Color rose in Laura's face, and Bill knew he wasn't wrong.


	32. The Dinner, Part IV

It was the strangeness of Richard in her Qualai house, she told herself. It was the discomfort of a piece of her old life butting heads with her new one. It was the pressure of a looming deadline, when she'd been so distracted in the past months, her mind, for once, on something besides her writing.

But from the moment Richard's gleaming little two-door had pulled into her driveway, something had been off between them.

She opened the door to find him standing on her porch—_posing_, the thought flashed through her mind; even in a one-doctor hamlet barely on the map, Richard Adar was a faithful devotee of the art of impressions management—his jacket slung effortlessly over one shoulder, his perfectly coordinated tie just loosened, his pale blue shirt exquisitely starched. He held up a bottle of wine, waving it jauntily in the air.

"I know, I'm the best," he answered her unspoken thanks, coaxing a reluctant smile from her lips.

It was true: Richard Adar was the most sought-after editor in the business, fielding pleading calls from agents of new writers daily, and here he was, in a town in which she knew he ordinarily wouldn't have been caught dead, with a bottle of what Laura had no doubt would prove to be a rare and costly vintage.

She'd been feeling so self-conscious about this book, so unsure of herself. She knew if she admitted it to Richard, he'd laugh and say she felt that way with every book, and they'd all gone on to be bestsellers. But this one…this one was different. _Death at the Dirty Hands_ would be her first novel since that exposé in the Caprica Times, since Aaron Doral had casually made the world an audience to the worst moment of her life. Everything would be different from now one, she knew: the accident would frame every review, would find its way into every interview…

Leaving Caprica City had helped. The news cycle spun on relentlessly, and soon her story was no longer daytime talk show fodder; a new edition of the Caprica Times replaced her face on the shelves. But even here in Qualai, things had changed. Now, at the grocery store, she spied pity in the eyes of the cashier ringing up her boxed sushi and half-price shampoo. The man at the dry-cleaner's stopped her to tell her how sorry he was for her loss. She avoided going into the bank anymore, preferring to manage her transactions through the drive-through window, which took twice as long on a good day but didn't lead to so many whispers behind the counter.

But it was the change in the people who knew her best that cut the deepest.

Tory's perennially brusque tones had turned almost gentle, as though she thought Laura had survived the loss of everyone she'd ever loved only to become tearful over a tour-date mix-up. Marcie called her twice a week now, religiously, the way she had in those blurry months after the accident. Bill had been a habitual pusher of speed limits, a frequent tailgater, muttering imprecations against slow drivers under his breath as he passed in the wrong lane; now he drove like an old man, making full, three-second stops at stop signs and intersections, keeping the speedometer resolutely below the limit, shooting a worried glance in her direction every time he was forced to brake unexpectedly.

And then there was Lee.

Bill hadn't said what explanations he'd offered his older son for her disappearance and reappearance, and she hadn't asked. The delicate balance among the four of them felt so new and fragile; she didn't want to risk upsetting it with awkward questions. And her relationship with Zak and Lee was uncharted territory still, a dim haziness through which she was just feeling her way. She was conscious, always, of overstepping her bounds, of forgetting that she was still a guest in their home.

So she hadn't asked. And her silence had allowed her to convince herself that maybe, it was all right…maybe, somehow, the boys didn't know…

Until the night that the four of them were watching a movie, and a car crash took place on screen…and Lee looked up at her, his blue eyes knowing, and wrapped his little hand tightly around hers.

She wanted it to feel like love. She wanted their concern to make her feel safe, cared for. But instead, she just felt vulnerable, her armor stripped away, her wounds on the outside now.

She didn't know how to live this way. And she certainly didn't know how to publish a book.

It would be a relief to have Richard here, she'd thought. He'd helped her craft her first book, when the shellshock of the accident was still fresh in her eyes, when she was still insisting to anyone who would listen that she might have written a book, but she definitely wasn't a _writer_. It had been Richard, back then, who had coaxed her into rewrites over lunches, who'd arranged for Tory to handle her publicity, who'd sent her a bottle of the finest champagne she'd ever tasted with her first flimsy royalties check.

No matter what had happened between them since, he wouldn't let her make a fool out of herself now.

She gestured him into the house, conscious, suddenly, of the last time he'd stood on this porch, when she'd blocked the door with her body and told him they were really, finally, over.

But Richard, staring behind her shoulder, didn't seem to remember that.

She followed his line of sight to a framed picture propped up on the small table just inside her door. It was a terrible shot; Sandra had insisted on commemorating her first day of summer vacation, and Cheryl had complained bitterly about having her windswept hair photographed, and Laura was halfway out of the frame, her hand over her mouth, laughing…

"Nice house," was all Richard said, setting his bags down on the coffee table. "You decided not to sell after all?"

"Not just now," she answered carefully.

She'd never explained her change of heart, what had driven her out of Qualai or what had sent her running back. She hadn't even seen him during her stay in Caprica City, although they'd spoken once, and either way, she could hardly have cried on his shoulder about her romantic woes. She'd never even told him about Bill in the first place; he certainly wouldn't have wanted to hear when things went south. It wasn't the kind of relationship they had, had ever had.

She changed the subject. "Let me show you the guest room," she said, lifting a leather satchel that she guessed cost only slightly less than her house. "I know it's a long trip from Caprica City, but…"

Richard's cool palms cupped her hips. "And here I thought you'd want to get right to work," he teased. "But far be it from me to argue with you—"

She stepped backwards out of his grip, her face flushing, afraid, for one wild moment, that someone had seen, even though they were alone. "I didn't invite you here for that."

He sighed deeply. "My dear, you always say that."

She supposed he might have a point, self-serving though it might be.

She sank down on the stairs and regarded the man standing at the bottom, the mild irritation coloring his complexion, the utter absence of shame.

"Richard…I'm seeing someone."

The shock that came over his face was not flattering.

"And it's serious," she continued, briskly talking through what she knew would be only a temporary speechlessness. "You and I have known each other a long time, and we've always worked well together, but if you can't respect that—"

"I couldn't be happier for you," Richard declared, with only a trace of his usual irony. "What's his name? How did you meet?"

She shifted uncomfortably. "He built the house next door."

"The boy next door," Richard cooed. "How romantic."

"His name is Bill," she returned coolly. "He's an architect, he has two kids, and," she lifted her chin, "he's crazy about me."

Richard raised his hands in mock surrender. "I like him already."

He seated himself on the edge of her couch, flipping open his laptop expectantly. "Now, are we going to work on this book of yours, or what?"

* * *

If she'd been on her game, she would have let Bill's call go to voicemail until Richard was out of the room. But she picked up without thinking, and his name had slipped out…and like a bloodhound scenting a juicy bone, Richard dug his teeth into the overheard dinner invitation and would not let go. Unable to fight a battle on two fronts, Laura had given in, and grudgingly accepted…even if, privately, the idea of putting Richard and Bill together made her distinctly queasy.

It would be all right, she'd told herself.

It was not.

Bill had seemed to loathe Richard on sight, as though he'd already had time to develop a longstanding antipathy. Richard had managed to be childishly, pettily rude before he even stepped foot through the door.

Dinner was no better. Richard gleefully poked at Bill like a kid at camp taunting a bear, until Bill was reduced to a seething, monosyllabic rage. Zak, usually her buddy, barely looked at her all night; Lee, her ally, glared at her as though he knew she was blame for all this.

Maybe it shouldn't have hurt, seeing them contract into a unit that way. She wasn't a part of their family. She'd known that.

But the slight stung.

Richard was being an ass. Laura, if anyone had asked, would have admitted it freely. But he was the first friend of hers that they'd met, and Bill had gone glacial since the moment he and Richard had shaken hands. She'd made an effort with his friends, hadn't she? Did they think Saul Tigh was exactly a peach to get along with? Did they think _Ellen Tigh_ was her idea of an ideal dinner companion?

Sometimes, she'd indulged herself in fantasies of what bringing the Adamas home to her family would have been like. Now, her wistful little imaginings seemed hopelessly naïve. Would Bill have sulked his way through dinner with her father, she wondered? Would he have avoided her eyes in front of her sisters?

Richard, having honed in on an easy target, was still harping on about Bill's work.

"The last time we renovated, the architect was _always_ 'working on another project,'" he put in artlessly, as though Bill were expected to apologize for the entire profession.

He reached for the wine, purely to annoy Bill, she knew; under normal circumstances, Richard would have considered grocery store-brand cabernet, with last year's date on the label, to be undrinkable…

And then Bill's face twisted, and when his fist clenched, for one long, heart-stopping moment, she thought she was about to witness his fist crashing into Richard's face.

Instead, Bill took a long, slow sip of water. When he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper. "_We_ as in you and your wife?"

The world tilted off center. He couldn't know, Laura told herself, her stomach lurching, hot chills rising up on her skin. He couldn't know about her and Richard, nobody knew, she'd always been so careful…

"Yes," Richard answered at last, temporarily subdued, his edges momentarily blunted.

But Bill wasn't looking at him.

Bill was looking at her, and when the shock creasing his face tightened into contempt, she knew that he knew.

Her vision blurred. Hot bile burned her throat, acidic with her one glass of wine. She could feel Bill's eyes on her, the air thick with his disappointment, choking her.

She did not look at Bill. She did not look at Zak or Lee. She raised her glass to her lips and drained it, willing the room to right itself and the tears to clear from her eyes.

When she held out her hand to Richard for the bottle, no one argued with her. When Bill brusquely informed the boys that it was time for them to get ready for bed, for once, they didn't argue, either.

When she mumbled an excuse and disappeared into the kitchen, no one followed.

* * *

"On the bright side…maybe you can use that scene in your next book."

Laura raised her head wearily from her hands. For a moment, hearing footsteps near the kitchen, she had thought, her breath catching in her throat, that it might be Bill.

"Go to hell, Richard."

His light footfalls came closer as he moved in front of her field of vision to lean against the kitchen table, where she'd collapsed…how long ago, now?

"You can't possibly blame me for this."

Her voice floated up, lazily, from some remote part of herself still capable of carrying on a conversation. "Wanna bet?"

Richard's irritated exhalation grated on her. "Are we going home yet?"

She couldn't look at him, not now. She stared out the window into the night, watching the shows cover her darkened house, wondering if there would soon be a For Sale sign on her lawn once again. "You are."

For once, Richard sounded startled, as though faced with the rare outcome he hadn't foreseen, the cost he hadn't already factored in. "You can't be serious. What about the book?"

She shook her head slowly. Every movement was such an effort, the air thick and heavy. She would have crawled into bed and slept for days, if she thought she could make it across the driveway. "I don't know."

Richard pushed back the chair opposite, the wood scraping impatiently against the tile floor. "Laura," he said, his fine-boned fingers covering hers. "I'm sorry if I've made things more difficult for you. But…you can't seriously have thought you were going to make a life here."

She pulled away, crossing her arms, nails digging into her skin with the effort to keep her voice low. The only possible way left for this night to get any worse would be for Zak and Lee to overhear. "Excuse me?"

Most people backed away when she used that flinty tone, when the iron entered her eyes. Richard had known her too long.

"This isn't who you are," he said, real confusion clouding his eyes. "Hiding out in some backwater town, playing house with Bill the Builder? I know you, I get it, I really do. But those children aren't your baby, Laura. They never will be. Do you really want to waste your life with some small-town loser, making lunches for someone else's kids and pretending to listen to stories about construction projects? You have to know you don't belong here."

The hinges of the kitchen door creaked behind her. She turned, just in time to see the door drifting open, stirred by motion behind it, and to hear heavy footfalls, fading away.

Laura closed her eyes.

She already knew Bill had heard everything.


	33. The Stairs

_When their real estate agent (Maya, Bill was pretty sure; he remembered her as being very young, and as cheerfully overlooking the nearly tangible tension between himself and his wife, as well as the very new and shiny ring on the hand that rested on Carolanne's already quite rounded abdomen) had showed them this place, Carolanne had balked at the double set of outdoor stairs leading to their second-floor apartment._

"_I don't know, Bill," she'd said, rubbing her belly in a way he couldn't help but think was a conscious effort on her part to remind him of the role he'd played in their current situation, "that's a long climb at the end of every day. And with a baby…how are we going to get a stroller up and down those?"_

_But the proximity to his work and the need to stay within their limited budget had won out, and they'd signed the lease…but with enough acrimony between them that Bill never, no matter how tired or sore he might be, slipped up and complained about the stairs. _His stairs, _Carolanne called them, every time grocery bags had to be hauled up or Lee stumbled on his little legs and nearly lost his footing…_

_Today had been a long, frustrating day, from Zak's crying at three am (and four…and five, and six, when Bill had to leave for work) to his boss's very public explosion over Bill's failure to finish a draft of a client's blueprints on time. (Helena Cain might be many things—a brilliant architect, a terrifying rival, a faultless businesswoman—but a warm and sympathetic figure she was not. Bill had been lucky not to have been fired on the spot.) Carolanne, he knew, would be angry he was coming home so late; more angry, she'd hated him since Zak's birth, since the stick turned pink, since that morning two and a half years ago at City Hall when the cheap ring clutched in his sweaty palm had been slipped onto her shaking hand..._

_But despite all that, today, as he paused at the top of the first set of stairs, he looked up at the sky and caught the moment the sun dipped below the horizon, the fading glow casting a gentle warmth over the sparkling lights of the skyscrapers in the distance and the waterlogged garbage left abandoned in the street, and for the first time in days, he felt a soft glimmer of hope._

_Maybe, as he kept telling Lee, it really would be okay after all. Maybe he and Carolanne would work things out. Maybe they'd all be a family, all these months of struggle safely behind them. _

_But when he reached the door and pressed his key into the lock (still wobbly, even after a thousand conversations with their landlord), he could already hear Lee's tired sobbing and the baby's frantic wailing….but it was the silence, empty of Carolanne's rage or exhaustion or despair, that sucked the air out of his lungs. _

_Would he find Carolanne passed out on the bathroom floor? Had she finally slipped up, and lost control in front of the kids? Was there a stranger asleep in his bed?_

_Maybe he was wrong. Maybe this evening would be just like any other, another tensely quiet dinner, another night stretched out alone on the couch. _

_But when he pushed open the door and even the kids' crying went silent, he knew everything was about to change._

* * *

If it weren't for Zak and Lee upstairs in their beds asleep, he'd already be gone.

He'd fumbled into his jacket, numbly, as he eased open the front door, the cold metal of his keys already pressing into his palm before realized he had nowhere to go.

Maybe Saul would have understood that he needed some air, would have hauled himself into his perennially broken-down hatchback to come sit with the kids while Bill slammed down shots at the corner bar…but Bill couldn't ask. Not with Laura here. Not when he'd told Saul how much better they were, how it was different this time.

Laura was still inside, unless she'd wised up and sneaked out the back in the meantime. He couldn't fathom why she'd stayed, much less why _Richard_ had stayed. He'd thought, when Laura had disappeared and he'd hustled the kids up to bed, that he'd come down the stairs to find some quiet, some _peace_, a little time to gather his thoughts and pull his face together…

Instead, he'd walked in on Laura huddled in the kitchen with her former (gods, he _hoped_ it was still former) lover, sharing an intimate conversation on exactly how wrong Bill was for her. How wrong his whole life was for her.

He sat down heavily on the stone steps, the gentle chirping of crickets and the soothing stillness of nighttime Qualai unable to drown out Richard's stinging honestly…or Laura's more damning silence.

_Do you really want to waste your life with some small-town loser? You have to know you don't belong here._

It wasn't like those thoughts were unfamiliar to him. He drove a ten-year-old truck and built houses in a little town most people in the twelve worlds had never heard of. He came home at the end of the day with tired eyes and sawdust on his boots. _Laura Roslin_ was a name people _recognized_, printed on bestseller lists and casually exchanged on daytime talk shows. People on planets he'd never set foot on lined up to see her when she came through on every highly-anticipated book tour. Her mysteries had made it into the curriculum of Caprica City's most prestigious universities, and were read by more people than had voted in the last election. They'd never compared bank statements, but Bill wasn't stupid; he knew Laura never sat up at night sweating mortgage payments and grocery bills. It wasn't a question of who could provide a better life for her—Laura had already done that for herself. But it was hard not to imagine that even Richard's divided attention, full of lush hotel rooms and decadent dinners, secret meet-ups and last-minute tropical vacations, might not have had a spark, a rush, that even Bill's full devotion might always lack.

Harder, still, when it wasn't a nasty whisper in the back of his mind, but a voice spoken out loud in his kitchen.

He looked up at this house that he'd built, with cast-off materials and borrowed equipment, and listened to the humming of cicadas, not silenced by traffic or the rush of people, and wondered if Laura was wondering how she'd stood it here, too.

When he heard the quiet snap of the screen door behind him, he didn't know how long he'd been out there, and he didn't have to turn to know who it was.

"I would have thought you'd gone home."

He could feel Laura's moment of hesitation, her weariness, as she settled down on the steps beside him, close enough that he could feel the tension in the arms she crossed around her knees, the goose bumps the cool evening air brought out on her bare legs.

Keeping his eyes ahead of him, he shrugged out of his jacket and held it out to her. The rough material brushed his skin as she wrapped it around her shoulders.

"I sent Richard home," she said finally.

"Wonderful," he said, in a tone he recognized from the latter days of his marriage. "Will I be hosting you both for breakfast?"

He could hear the irritation in her quiet sigh, as though she thought she had a right to be angry with him.

"Back to Caprica City, Bill. You knew what I meant."

He hadn't, as a matter of fact, but what did it matter now?

A breeze drifted the scent of freesia and amber across his face, and he gripped his hands together.

"Will you be going with him?"

Her shoulders stiffened, so close to his they could almost have been curled between the sheets together upstairs, all of this a bad dream, to have faded completely by their first sips of coffee.

"I can't believe you'd ask me that."

This morning, he wouldn't have believed he'd be asking it, either.

He didn't answer.

"I know you're upset," she tried again, a familiar intensity in her soft tone that made him want to bury his head in her lap. "But that was _him_ talking, Bill, not me—"

"You could have told me," he interrupted, unable to listen to her deny what he already knew was true, what they both had to know. "You could have told me who he was before I brought him into my house. Before I introduced him to my kids."

Even staring out at the shadows, he could feel her rolling her eyes. "Yes, I'm sure if I'd brought him to the door and said 'Hey, Bill, this is my current editor and former married boyfriend, what's for dinner?' the evening would have gone much more smoothly."

He snorted, in spite of himself. "It would have saved us all some time."

When she spoke, the exhaustion in her voice was palpable, and he wondered if she were wishing she'd sneaked out the back door and gone home, too.

"What do you want me to say, Bill? It was over a long time ago. I'm not proud of it. It was a year after the accident, and I was lost, and I was alone, and I made a mistake, and I didn't want you to know that about me, so I didn't tell you."

She paused, and he knew she was about to say something that would make the knot in the pit of his stomach tighten harder. "But I didn't do anything to _you_. He slept in my guest room and we worked on my book. You asked me to bring him to dinner, so I did. And you've been punishing me for it since the moment I walked through the door."

He started to interrupt, and movement blurred out of the corner of his eye, Laura holding up a hand.

"I'm not defending his behavior. I wanted to crack him over the head with the bottle tonight, too. But nothing happened to you. An unpleasant dinner guest drank your wine and made a few cracks about your work. Nobody cheated on _you_, Bill."

It was a fair point, and he struggled not to resent her more for it.

"Somebody did," he said finally, the words soaked in a bitterness he'd thought he'd left behind long ago. "And I came home to a note on my kitchen counter saying she didn't want to be stuck with a small-time loser, either."

"Bill…" Laura breathed, her voice full of sorrow. And then: "My _gods_, you're stupid."

Startled, he met her eyes for the first time since she'd gotten up from that dinner. "Excuse me?"

"If you can't tell the difference between then and now, I can't help you," she said, shaking her head. "You think I've put all this work into this, you think I'm sitting here _now_, because I'm planning to run off with _Richard_? You think I invited him down here to have a torrid affair fifteen feet from your house?" She jabbed an irate finger across the lawn at her house, where Richard's car still sat in the driveway. "You know better."

He shifted uncomfortably, a thoroughly unexpected wave of shame bringing a flush to his face he hoped Laura couldn't see in the dark. His fury, his shaking hands, suddenly seemed a little ridiculous, with her beside him, warming the stone steps beneath them, and not inside, her head bent to whisper with someone else. It was almost worse, somehow, than that moment at the table, avoiding her touch…but it was a relief, too, to be told he was wrong, to think that they might not be as far apart as he'd feared.

It was hard, harder than he could say, to believe that she wasn't always a moment from walking out.

But maybe tonight could be just a bad night, and not the end of everything after all; maybe things could still go back to normal…

Laura was waiting, her arms crossed, and when she lifted an irritated eyebrow at his continued silence, even sitting on his front steps in her bare feet in the dark, he could suddenly imagine her behind a desk, her glare intimidating two kindergartners into apologizing to each other. It was not a flattering mental image.

"I might have overreacted," he allowed.

"You _think_?"

Her voice was no gentler, but when he brought his arms around her and eased her into his lap, she didn't resist. But there was something flinty in her green eyes that hadn't been there on his porch a few hours before, and it cut him. If he'd kept his mouth shut during dinner, would Laura have sent Richard packing herself? Would they be upstairs now, finishing off the last of the wine, laughing, Richard's jealousy, their unfortunate history, already a joke?

_I'm sorry_ stuck in his throat.

"Will you stay tonight?" he whispered instead.

"I can't," she informed him testily. "I have an unhappy editor to kick out of my house."

He wanted to say it didn't matter, that Richard should stay…but it wasn't his choice to make; it was Laura's. He wouldn't do her any favors by pretending to be magnanimous. Not when he'd already been so painfully clear on how he really felt. Not when a quiet voice in the back of his mind still whispered that when Richard left, she might be sorry.

She rested her palms on his chest, to bring him close or push him away, he wasn't sure, and he knew he wouldn't be able to close his eyes with her in another bed tonight. It seemed stupid, suddenly, wasteful, the number of nights apart they'd spent, how slow and careful they'd been. He didn't want Laura in the house next door, coming over for sensibly scheduled dinners and disappearing across the lawn at the end of the night. He wanted her family pictures on his walls and her toothbrush in his bathroom and her presence at every one of his dinners, good, bad, and indifferent. What was he waiting for?

But if he told her that now, she'd think it was about Richard, that he didn't trust her. He couldn't risk it. They'd done enough damage to each other today.

But maybe…maybe there was something else he could do. Maybe tomorrow was soon enough to let her see what he'd been working on. Maybe, if he didn't know how to talk to her about the future, he could take her there, instead.

Maybe it wouldn't fix this. But he had to hope she'd understand.

He touched his lips to her cheek and wished that the press of his forehead to hers was enough to let her hear what he didn't know how to say.

"Laura…would you come back in the morning? I want to show you something."


	34. The Surprise, Part II

Staring out the passenger side window as the world outside blurred past, the mid-day sun creating pools of dim, diffuse light among the thick-leafed trees that lined this road that seemed to have stretched on for days, Laura felt like a kid again, stuck in the car, resisting the ever-present urge to ask if they were there yet, and it grated on her.

She did not want to feel anything today.

She crossed her arms a little tighter against her chest and bit back a sigh. Whatever Bill had planned, she just wanted it to be over.

It had already been a long day.

Richard had left early that morning, slipping his suitcase into the trunk under the first weak rays of sunlight, the sound of his key in the ignition harsh and abrupt, cutting through Qualai's morning hush...at least to Laura's self-conscious ear.

"Drive safe," she'd offered as he brushed past her, his eyes already on the door, his mind clearly already back in Caprica City.

After leaving Bill, that exhausting conversation, she'd come home to find Richard gathering his things, clearly intent on immediate departure. That, at least, had been a relief.

"I'll leave my notes and the draft with you," was all he'd said. "I'll have my assistant call you with the name of one of the other editors; you can finish any other changes to the book with them. If you want to bring your next book to another publisher, you can take that up with legal."

It wasn't the first time she'd ended things between them, nor the first time she'd watched him leave. But they'd parted before as old friends, at least, with affection for what they'd once been to each other. This morning, with Richard's eyes avoiding hers, his precise, stinging words still echoing in her head…

She had never wanted it to end like this. But it was past time that whatever had been between them was really, finally, over, personally and professionally, even if it had taken this terrible night to make her see it.

She didn't need Richard as a crutch, not anymore.

In the darkness, by the faint glow of her porch light, it might not have been possible for Bill to make out the lights of Richard's car heading out of Qualai. He certainly couldn't have picked up on the cold, sullen efficiency of Richard's posture, her crossed arms, the exaggerated politeness in the space they left between them. _If_ Bill had been watching. She hoped otherwise. She hoped that he trusted her, that he'd turned off the lights and gone to bed…as she sat up and watched the sun rise from her kitchen window, cold fingers gripping the first of many cups of coffee, the bitter brew already souring her stomach.

"Almost there," Bill said, his voice grating, rusty from the long silence, in a tone that might have been reassuring if not for the tension in the bloodless grip of his fingers on the steering wheel.

Before yesterday, Laura would have made a joke; hadn't he said that twenty miles ago? Did he not know where they were going, either? But now she feared that the friction between them would leak into her voice, straining the situation further, and she stayed silent, staring out her window.

They had exchanged only a handful of words today, since Bill had pulled into her driveway early that morning (had he been looking to catch Richard still there? She hoped not) and she'd slipped into the passenger side, echoing his gruff "Good morning" with a quiet greeting of her own. It wasn't the silent treatment, Laura told herself. That wasn't how she meant it. But so many words had been spoken last night, so much that neither of them would ever be able to take back. She wanted to be careful now, to protect the fragile peace between them until that frakkin' dinner was far enough in their rearview mirror that it couldn't hurt them anymore.

She wondered if that was what had spurred Bill to insist on this road trip, now, in the middle of the week, when he had so many projects in the air and she had so little time before her deadline to finish her book. (_Not to mention shop for a new editor_, put in a distinctly crotchety tone in the back of Laura's mind.)

_At least the scenery's nice_, Laura could hear Sandra, always the voice of optimism, suggesting in her head.

She snorted.

"Something funny?"

Laura shook her head. "I guess not."

They lapsed again into silence.

Had they come this way before, she wondered? There was something about the particular curve of this road, the arc of the branches and the shape of the shadows they cast that seemed…familiar. She was glad she hadn't said anything; Bill certainly wouldn't have appreciated her teasing if they actually were lost. Not today.

The road was roughening now, gravel crunching beneath the worn tires of the truck. Up ahead, Laura could see even the gravel petering off, replaced by a simple dirt path, just wide enough for the truck, disappearing in the distance as it twisted between the trees.

There was something about that dirt road...

Bill slowed, now, casting her a quick glance she didn't know how to read.

Her heart beat faster. She'd been wrong.

Bill knew exactly where they were.

He cleared his throat. "Laura…"

His voice was measured, careful. "If…if you don't like this, or you don't want it, that'll be the end of it, and we'll never talk about it again. But I thought…"

He paused, his sharp gaze wandering the road ahead, and she had the feeling that he'd prepared something to say, and this wasn't it.

"I want this for you, and I want this for us," he said at last. "I hope you do, too."

She didn't trust herself to answer.

The tires spun a little in the soft dirt, struggling for a firmer grip on the earth. The trees were closer together now, not so deliberately spaced as they'd been by the main road, entwined trunks and entangled branches canopying the sky above them, casting the two of them in shadow. Up ahead, the road curved out of sight, and Laura leaned forward, her eyes on the clearing in the distance, and a strange glimmer among the trees…

Was that…_water?_

Her breath caught, and suddenly she knew where Bill had brought her.

She could feel his uneasy gaze on her, the tension in his form as he waited for her reaction, but she couldn't focus on that now. All she could take in was the sunlight now streaming in through the windows as they rounded the curve, as the truck silently rolled over the last few yards of dirt road to come to a stop beneath a sunny hillside, the sweep of mingled grasses and wildflowers gently smoothing down into a glittering expanse of tranquil blue water, quiet and undisturbed.

Even with the windows up, the breeze carried the scent of this place, an unmistakable blend of fresh water and camp fires and the damp wood of the dock. She could hear the wind whistling through the trees, touching down to lightly stir the surface. Looking down at that dock, once her favorite place in the universe to stretch out with a book, she could almost smell the cedar, feel the weathered planks beneath her body, the heat of the sun cozy and warm against her back.

If she'd been asked to close her eyes and picture her childhood, it would have been this lake.

Laura blinked back a rush of tears, her vision blurring as she took in the summers of her childhood with adult eyes. She could see her family here, again, shimmering before her: Edward Roslin frying fresh-caught trout over the fire pit he'd dug himself, the smoke curling up into the sky; Judith kneeling in the dirt, cutting lettuce from her garden, carefully choosing each leaf for one of her famous salads, complete with her handcrafted vinaigrette, the recipe so secret she wouldn't even write it down...Cheryl and Sandra, shrieking and splashing in the shallows, their laughter echoing...

How had Bill found this place? She'd never mentioned the location; she'd only ever showed him that one picture, she and her sisters sunbathing on the dock...

She turned to say something, to try to find the words, to thank him for this-

Her eye caught the structure up on the hill, above the lake, and the breath went out of her chest.

She hadn't understood at all.

It wasn't the lake house of her childhood, not anymore. The faded, splintered wood was gone now, along with the cracked and mismatched stone. This house was sturdy and strong again, built of new dark wood, unweathered and solid, like it must once have been, long before Laura had ever laid eyes on it. The old leaky roof had been removed, replaced by sloping tile, hugged by a gray stone chimney. A wide porch now wrapped around the front of the house, a porch swing swaying gently in the breeze, where someone, or two someones, could sip their morning coffee and watch the sun come up over the lake. She could see that new rooms had been added on to the back, expanding the space...

Making it fit their family.

Bill was opening her door, gently leading her out; when had he gotten out of the truck? She gripped his arm like a life raft, closing her eyes for a moment as she let the feel of this place wash over her.

"I kept most of the original structure," Bill explained, his blue eyes bright, eagerness warring with concern. "I updated the kitchen, opened up the floor plan; most of the plumbing had to be replaced...I added an office for you, in case you wanted to write here..."

Of course he had.

"It's yours," he said, his eyes fixed on hers. "The deed is in your name. Whatever happens between us, whatever happens to me, this house will always belong to you."

Did she want that? She'd only just unpacked her pictures, put her family back up on her walls...could she bear to see their ghosts here every day?

Could she bear to turn and leave them here?

Bill was silent, waiting, his arm steady on hers. He didn't try to rush her, didn't ask what she was thinking.

She wouldn't have known how to express it.

She was thinking about that final summer here, so many tiny moments she wished she'd known would be the last. She was thinking about the future, about time, about how she'd stood here with her family last so confident they'd stand here again.

She was thinking about cooking in her mother's kitchen, making her recipes for the first time since her death. She was thinking about fishing off the dock with Zak and Lee, teaching them how to bait a hook and cast a line, just as her parents had taught her. She was thinking about sleeping beside Bill under that roof, the two of them making this place a home for each other, a place that Zak and Lee would remember as part of their own childhoods someday. She was thinking about old memories and ones still to be made, living side by side here, her old family and her new.

Bill squeezed her hand, bringing her back to the present. "But Laura, if you don't want any of this-"

How long had he planned this, how much work must this have taken? How many days, weeks, months, must he have given to this house he was prepared to watch her let go?

She brought her hands up to cup his face, feeling his stubble beneath her fingers, the flush of his skin, the rapid, anxious beat of his pulse. "I love you."

It was the first time she'd said those words to him, the first moment she hadn't been too afraid to risk them out loud.

A smile spread slowly over his face, long-held tension easing, doubt and uncertainty draining from his worn features. Were there tears in his eyes, or was it just the tears in hers?

Her fingertips still on his cheeks, she brought his face down to hers.

"Yeah," Bill whispered against her lips, "but do you like the house?"


	35. Epilogue

_Hugs and chocolate chip cookies for everyone who's made it this far, for everyone who commented and everyone who didn't. I told you I'd finish eventually, didn't I?_

* * *

The gentle breeze stirring the cabin's front porch was cooler now than it had been that day he'd first brought Laura up here, a crisp bite to the balmy air that promised chillier nights to come. The leaves would be changing soon, the big green fronds overlooking the lake turning orange and brown before dropping away into the water, the lake too cold for swimming by then. Sooner than that, the refreshing evening breeze would turn icy, and there would be no more nights like these, cozy on the porch swing with a cup of something hot or a glass of something warming in his hands, watching the sun go down over the water, setting the night sky ablaze above what had become his favorite place in the universe. The wind picked up, raising fine hairs along his bare arms, and Bill leaned back in the big wooden swing, sheltering a little beneath the overhang of the roof. He didn't mind the temperature, himself, but he knew, tonight, that this might be their last trip up here for the year. He and Laura had managed to bring Zak and Lee up here several weekends over the past two months (and even once, memorably, come alone) but now there was no denying it: summer was over. It brought a bittersweet ache to Bill's chest, realizing it.

It had been a good summer.

Zak had turned into a surprisingly adept fisherman, baiting his own hook with his chubby fingers and casting as far out into the lake as his little arms would allow. Lee tied better knots, but he could only be prevailed upon to join them on the dock if he was promised that all fish would be thrown summarily back into the water. It had been on the tip of his father's tongue to ask him where he thought the fish he ate at home came from, but Laura had swiftly agreed to this condition, casting Bill a warning look above Lee's head. She'd been right, he could see in retrospect. Laura was right…well, most of the time, he was finding.

The bonfire, though, had been his idea. He'd built the pit himself (with nominal and very distracting help from his children), letting the boys gather sticks and branches for the fire while Laura wrote inside. That night, when the flames had arched and danced in the darkness, casting bright sparks up against the night sky, it had been almost magical.

And now it was over.

But then again, maybe he was wrong. Maybe just because this place had meant summer to the Roslins didn't mean it couldn't be something else for them. Maybe they'd come back a little later in the season, when the leaves were bright colors and the fire would help keep them warm. Maybe they'd drive up here some year for the kids' Solstice break: they could sled down the big hill, build snowmen beside the dock…

"What are you smiling about?"

He shifted over on the porch swing, allowing Laura to slip in beside him, his arm settling around her shoulders.

"I like it here," he said.

That wasn't it—not quite—but he didn't have the words to encompass this moment: the deep orange sun sinking down over the hill, disappearing into the still water below…the sound of faint crickets, softening the nighttime silence…his kids, safely asleep inside…Laura's warmth beside him, the day they'd shared together, the hours still to come…

He hoped she understood the rest of it, the ache in his throat he didn't know how to describe, the sense of something ending, and something new still unfolding.

She hadn't officially moved in with him and the boys, not yet, but she was spending most of her days (and nights) there…her time that wasn't occupied with the final push to finish her book, anyway. He'd mentioned, a few days ago, that it wouldn't be hard to convert his guest room into an office for her, someplace she could close the door on the constant noise and interruptions of Zak and Lee and Viper. She'd seemed pleased by the idea…but he hadn't wanted to push. It was where they were headed, he was positive of that. They didn't need to rush.

Laura's radiant smile mirrored his, and he knew she understood what he didn't know how to say.

"Shouldn't you be going over Cottle's changes?" he asked.

Laura had found her new editor sooner than he would have believed possible. As guilty as he still felt about his participation in Adar's inglorious exit from her professional life, he couldn't help but feel that this editor was going to be with her for the long run. Sherman Cottle was, as far as he could tell, a cantankerous, perpetually unhappy man who drove Laura to distracted mumblings with his obsessive attention to punctuation and sentence structure. Bill had liked him immediately.

Laura's smile widened. "I just finished," she said, lifting the thick stack of pages from her lap and waving it dramatically in the air. "_Finished_ finished. You are looking at a woman who just met her deadline."

He leaned closer, closing the space between them. "Congratulations," he whispered against her lips.

He hoped his kiss said _I'm proud of you_ better than he could.

"Do I get to read it?" he asked, gesturing at the pages in her lap.

"Eventually," she teased, stretching languidly. "I have't decided yet. But for now, I'm _free_."

He smiled, playing along with her game. "What will you do with all your new time?"

She smiled, an impish arch to her eyebrows, and he realized there was a plan at play here. "I had a thought."

He waited.

"I thought we'd drive up here next weekend," she continued, her bright smile belying her deliberately casual tone, "bring the kids, maybe a few other people, maybe Saul and Ellen, maybe Marcie, maybe some food…"

She trailed off, dragging out the moment, clearly enjoying herself.

"..and?" he prompted.

Her smile turned triumphant. "And get married."

He sat up straighter, startled. "Just like that?"

Laura leaned against him, her head against his chest. "Just like that."

The sun had almost disappeared now, submerged into the lake, its fires banked by the horizon. In a moment, the change would be irrevocable, nightfall complete; this instant was a pause, a held breath between the past and the future.

Laura was right; this was the place.

This was the place where they could join their lives together, a place that celebrated their present, that held their history but not their ghosts, a place where, he realized, Laura's family could be there, too.

It felt right.

He kissed the top of her head. "I'd like that."

"Laura?"

They both started, turning in the direction of the voice.

Lee stood in the doorway of the cabin, his pajama-clad body illuminated by the warm light of the kitchen. "You said you'd tell me a story."

Laura pulled away from him, a little reluctantly, he knew. "So I did," she replied. "But then you're going straight to bed. Deal?"

"Deal," Lee agreed gleefully.

Laura turned back to him, a rueful smile curving her lips. "I'll be back," she promised.

She moved to follow Lee, then paused, hesitating.

She took a step back to drop the manuscript in his lap. "I think you'll like the beginning," she said simply, before guiding Lee into the house and up to bed, the door easing shut behind them.

Bill considered the hefty manuscript in his lap, feeling the weight of the pages, the countless hours, the months of energy and effort, some pages penned in a high-rise in Caprica City, some written right next door. He couldn't help but be surprised to be holding it; he'd thought Laura would drag out the suspense on the ending she'd finally chosen for _Death at the Dirty Hands_ for much longer, probably weeks, possibly right up until the publication date.

But as in many things, he was learning to be grateful for what he didn't understand.

He opened the book, and flipped past the first few pages, stopping short at the dedication:

_For Bill, who let me kill him,_

_and for Zak and Lee, who brought me back to life_


End file.
